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"Any blood shed for a cause that deserves it
Is blood well worth it, we fought to preserve it"
Holy fuck but this is incredible. Unbelievably slept on last year, and I guess I was complicit in that, but you need to check this one as soon as possible. There are more undeniable 100% bangers on here than any record I've heard in a while, which I guess makes it the spiritual sequel to Timbaland & Magoo's equally underrated Indecent Proposal (so anybody talking like "Tim fell off" who didn't cop this needs to check themselves, pronto). "Jimmy Mathis, please come out here..." - right out of the gate, it just fucking demands you to crank the volume knob up on your speakerboxxx. And it keeps coming - not sure about either 'Warrant' but by the time you get to 'Take A Load Off' you should be lifting the roof off or blowing out eardrums with that shit.
Other things:
- 'She Tried' makes me think the stupid Guardian was right: wow, maybe his lyrics really ARE more "thoughtful" than many other rappers! "How did I reward her loyalty? Let her walk in to see her cousin Joy on me..." And is that really Justin singing bluegrass on the hook?
- When people with otherwise excellent taste try to tell me that Kid Rock is worth listening to, the way they describe his songs makes me expect music like this. Especially the title track, which is so absurdly fantastic that it's snapped me out of mixtape lethargy so I can slot it in between the Twilight Singers and (probably) Outkast near the beginning of side two - coming soon. It's like 'Unhappy''s cowboy brother - yes, that good.
But 'Nowhere' brings the big surprise: Bubba Sparxxx can kick wisdom. "Where I'm from bein' broke's no honourable affliction." Much like Dizzee Rascal boilin' a kettle for a bath, 'Nowhere' makes me wonder whether the one prerequisite for making great hip hop is some kind of experience of hardship in early age. Other people can entertain you, but that's the stuff that hits home. Make no mistake, Bubba is all about the class war: that's what the album title refers to. At a time when otherwise right-on liberals/progressives feel free to toss around terms like "white trash" and "redneck" - when unthinking prejudice based not just on class but also on the rural/urban divide becomes all the more common amongst the urban and suburban middle classes - we really need people like Bubba Sparxxx. Seriously.
Many thanks to Illmatic for sorting me out a copy of this. |
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