Last week's Pretty Lights concert was fun, and as many have said of Pretty Lights before, it was a perfect excuse to "dumb out." Stumbling out of House of Blues with the masses, I realized I was glad to have seen Pretty Lights; but I was blown away by Jurrasic 5 mastermind, Chali 2na. He was incredible live. Sadly, after listening to 2na's newest mixtape Fish Market 2, it became clear to me that 2na's appeal lies solely in his sonorous baritone voice and authentic rhyme flow. While many of the tracks off of his albums are rich with lyrical clout, the beats that 2na raps over are overly repetitive, vacuous, and unoriginal. With that said, I am brought back to an interview I saw a while back, in which Drake said "it's really hard to rap over other people's songs and have it be timeless... it's hard to tour off of that." This deja-vu sound is a downfall suffered by too many big hip hop artists-- we rush to get the newly released album or mixtape only to find ourselves groaning, "commme onnnnnn, we've heard that before." (Is this why everyone is now gravitating towards mash-ups?) Thus, I suppose I will have to suck up my occasional boredom; as it is the poetry rising above the beats and, above all, the publics' tendency to gush over apocryphal tracks, that allow the hip-hop industry to survive. Right?
This is my favorite track off 2na's most recent mixtape Fish Market 2, released in June. Unfortunately, the beat he raps over is flat, but as far as flow is concerned, 2na is talented.
somehow I missed this goodness that came out a while ago; thanks Mike.
cream cheese and a bagel
have a glass of milk and
an ego
... sounds Rafalicious
fire. thanks Chono
this song is beautiful. beautiful. beautiful.
why I DONT hate winter
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