The RX

Domi & JD Beck Are The Rebirth Of Cool

by
Domi & JD Beck
Tehillah De Castro

Before they released their first single this past April, the only way to discover Domi & JD Beck online was getting lucky on one of those deep YouTube rabbit holes. If you happened to arrive at that layer of the internet, you’d have seen two teenagers with stupefying jazz music chops straight killing it, but with a foot firmly entrenched in the organic construction of melodic hip-hop beat canvases.

One of their relatively newer clips from December of 2020 called “Madvillainy Tribute,” sees the pair recreating Madlib’s iconic Madvillainy orchestral productions on their respective instruments. Domi plays keys and lays down bass grooves on pedals with her bare feet. Beck rips away at his modest drum kit, tapping a snare and cymbals faster than a house fly flaps its wings. The top comment on the video says, “I’m convinced these two made every adult swim bump to ever exist,” and it’s a hilarious albeit plausible assertion. Especially when you consider that a month before, they appeared in another viral YouTube video backing Thundercat and Ariana Grande’s duet of “Them Changes,” as part of Adult Swim’s peak-pandemic virtual festival.

“Thundercat is one of our closest friends. He’s done a lot for us,” Beck says backstage at Montreal’s Club Soda, before the pair’s Montreal Jazz Festival performance on July 6th, where the young audience at the foot of the stage hung on every dizzying note from their set-closing rendition of John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things.”

But lately, it’s another friend who has helped Domi & JD Beck raise their profile considerably: Anderson .Paak. Paak made the prodigious pair the flagship signing to his brand new Apeshit Records label and their debut album, Not Tight, arrived July 29th as a joint release with the storied jazz label, Blue Note Records. Along with appearances from Paak (notably on “Take A Chance,” which the three masterfully performed on Kimmel earlier this month), the album also features Snoop Dogg, Mac DeMarco, Herbie Hancock, Thundercat, and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel; an illustrious cast of guests to say the least. But the magnitude of none of this seems to phase the Parisian, Domi, 22, and Beck, 19, a Dallas native.

“We try not to overthink it,” Domi says. “Some people are like, ‘OMG Anderson Paak!’ And we’re like, ‘Yea, it’s Andy. We make music with him and we hang with him.’ It’s the same with Blue Note. We text and talk with them and sh*t. But we don’t try to make it like, ‘Blue Note! Blue Note!’ It’s still tight, but yea…”

They met Paak in late 2018 over Instagram. One of the members of The Free Nationals (Paak’s backing band and the other artists currently on the Apeshit roster) came to one of their shows. They later hipped Paak to their tunes, who then reached out on the app. They kept bumping into the Silk Sonic star at festivals when the pair were playing early sets or opening for soul multi-instrumentalist John Bap and just hit it off. The way they tell the story is in a ping pong recollection — equal parts nonchalant and frenetic, but always linear — each one peppering in a detail before the full picture comes together, just like their music.

Beck: “We just became friends.”

Domi: “Then we met him at a festival in New Orleans and met him and sh*t.”

Beck: “Like six or seven of our shows were in the same city.”

Domi: “Then he asked us to come through.”

Beck: “We’d play a bunch of jam sessions with them and stuff.”

Domi: “And then went to LA and he invited us to his studio and then dinner and sh*t. And he was like ‘Hey, I’m starting a label…”

Beck: “We met Mac DeMarco on that same tour.”

Everything is so matter-of-fact with them. They barely remember how they met each other in the first place. It was at the NAMM Convention in Anaheim (National Association of Music Merchants) and they can’t recall why they both ended up there, just that the whole experience was a drag, but they bonded over how hilariously bad everything felt.

“I was playing these electronic drums. So fake,” Beck says. Domi laments the in-ear monitor and a bunk keyboard they had her on. It’s almost as if they caught each other’s eye from an opposite corner of a stage and laughed. “We saw each other at a jam session the night before and he was with Thundercat,” Domi says. “That’s the first time I met him and hung out,” Beck adds. “Domi was there and she barely spoke English at all…she dapped me up like this.” [motions a half-assed fist bump]

Domi & JD Beck Anderson Paak
Tehillah De Castro

They laugh because they remember the experience in the same way. And if there’s a brother/sister vibe to them, it’s because they literally spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week together. “It’s been like that since 2018. But we beat each other up all the time,” Domi says. “We’re more like sumo wrestlers,” Beck adds. “It’s 50/50 on who wins.”

They currently split time between Dallas and LA. Before that, Domi was finishing up her studies at the Berklee School of Music, which the French national needed to do in order to maintain her visa (she graduated in 2020.) “‘I’d do all my classes in one day and then fly right back to Dallas,” she says. “Take a 5am flight, do my classes and fly back at midnight.”

Dallas is where they write, chill, and play video games when they’re not making music. But their writing process can be unconventional to say the least. Take “Smile” for example, a lead single from Not Tight and one of the most mesmerizing pieces of music you’ll hear this year. Domi’s Nord keyboard lays down an impeccable melody, and then no sooner than it starts to bounce alongside her MIDI keys bass, Beck’s snare and cymbal smacks jump symbiotically with it. They sound like Karriem Riggins and Bob James scoring a Quasimoto cartoon in the year 2030.

“JD was on the toilet, singing the melody and sh*t and I heard him scream ‘Domi! You gotta help me out!” Domi recalls of the song’s inception. “And he sang me the melody so I had to play and record it and then he was guiding me through the whole sh*t. We wrote it together, but it started with him on the toilet singing that melody. That’s the full disclosure.”

If jazz musicians ever created on the toilet, they’d never admit it. That’s part of what makes these two unique. But they have dexterous compositional chops as well. Writing melodies, chords, and bass together, but not on their instruments. “We notice that when you write on our instruments, that’s how it gets lazy and you write the same sh*t all the time,” Domi says. “That’s why a lot of people end up sacrificing their playing for writing,” Beck adds. “So we want to do it like composers, flesh out a whole song to write it and then the playing comes after.”

But you can’t pigeonhole what they are. With them, jazz is hip-hop and hip-hop is jazz. It’s the way music has been shifting since Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder sound joined forces with Kamasi Washington’s West Coast Get Down and started bringing it to the masses. Domi & JD Beck embody this paradigm shift in spades. Two Gen Z’ers who don’t give a f*ck, just want to create lasting work, and what they make is so cool and fresh; subversive and enlightening. It’s the same way that Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters was in 1973. A jazz and funk fusion that was as audacious as it was classically on point.

Hancock, who appears on Not Tight in the far-out “Moon,” in fact invited Domi & JD Beck on stage with him at the Hollywood Bowl last September, just after they recorded the song together. On this warm Southern California evening, they joined him for his pioneering fusion standard, “Chameleon.”

“It’s a funny thing because it’s the most played song that everybody just ruins and destroys,” Domi says. “Like every jam session where you can find the least amount of groove ever and everybody just plays like ten-minute solos. But we were playing it with f*cking Herbie Hancock.”

“If you’re ever gonna play ‘Chameleon,’ you have to play it with Herbie Hancock,” Beck jokes. ”Otherwise? Don’t play it.”

“But as we walked out,” Domi continued, “He said, ’Check em out on YouTube!’ ‘Cause that’s how he found us too. And I was like, there’s no way that 82-year-old Herbie Hancock — legendary — just shouted out our YouTube at the Hollywood Bowl.”

Not Tight is out now via Apeshit/Blue Note. Listen to it here.

Rico Nasty Gets More Vulnerable On ‘Las Ruinas,’ But She Still Yells A Lot, Too

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rico nasty las ruinas review
Atlantic

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

We’re at the point where it’s both reductive and inadequate to call Rico Nasty just a rapper. And Rico’s new mixtape, Las Ruinas, is exhibit A in the argument that what the Maryland artist does is way too expansive, creative, and intriguing to be constrained to the labels it has been given so far. Some of those labels include punk-rap, emo-trap, scream-rap, and sugar trap – the last term Rico’s own, coined on one of her first mixtapes. Las Ruinas explodes those paradigms, throwing Paramore, Run-DMC, Lil Uzi Vert, and Nicki Minaj into a blender and letting it rip, creating something entirely different from any of its influences.

In the run-up to the release, Rico insinuated that the tape would show a softer side of the brash, ‘80s-inspired artist than her debut album, Nightmare Vacation. Insomuch as it accomplishes this mission, there’s still a lot of yelling – which is actually a good thing. When artists try to get confessional, they can sometimes lean too heavily into the emotion, making for a mawkish, melodramatic affair. Rather than getting bogged down by maudlin ballads, Las Ruinas opts to expand the sonic palette of its predecessor, which in turn allows Rico to try new things without really leaving her lane. It’s a neat trick.

Part of it is that Rico’s lane is really wide. She’s already established herself in the hyperpop lane, where plenty of these new tracks reside. The album opens with “Intrusive,” all warped-synths and overblown bass kicks, with Rico rasping her way through the uptempo track, occasionally embellished with spacey vocal effects. “Black Punk,” meanwhile, takes the tempo down a tick and adds some Korn-ish guitar – it’s not exactly punk, or nu-metal, but it’s clearly influenced by both. The flavor of Rico’s own secret sauce is what ties it all together and keeps any single element from dominating the mix.

The closest she comes to a recognizable, single genre effort is the emphatic “Blow Me,” which borrows the thumping drums of Memphis trap with a hypnotic instrumental loop from the Atlanta strain, then finds Rico splitting the difference between her “Own It” flow and the one from “Fashion Week” for a cavalier call-out to challengers. It’s an impressive show of her improvement since Nightmare Vacation, as she mocks, “Your bitch ain’t bad, she a eyesore / Truth hurts, baby, you should lie more.” It’s just one of a litany of guffaw-worthy rhymes on the album, and you can almost hear her snickering as she says them.

Rico even manages to put her own specific twist on a rising trend with “Jungle,” Rico’s remix of Fred Again..’s pulse-pounding house jam. Remember when I said Black people were coming back to reclaim dance music? Rico definitely got the memo. What’s truly awesome about the confidence and comfort she displays on this track is that she appears just as cozy on Nirvana-esque ballad “Easy,” the dreamy “Focus On Me,” and the album’s closer, “Chicken Nugget.”

The latter, an ode to her son Cameron, is a true triumph; in it, Rico opens up about how Cam opened up her own world. “Now I see why my mama yelled at me,” she reflects. “I can see how she was obsessed with me.” It’s exactly the sort of vulnerability peeking out of the thrash-rapper facade that strengthens her image as a badass. There’s real passion and heartache – the kind born of the implied and well-known struggles of motherhood, highlighted by the usual teenage angst – fueling her outbursts. At the same time, by pulling off the mask, even slightly, Rico makes herself more relatable, more endearing, and more human than many of her peers in the SoundCloud-bred, screamo-rap scene, whose “rage” has always struck me as at least a little bit manufactured.

The eclecticism displayed on Las Ruinas might leech some of its replay value or turn off listeners looking for a more consistent listening experience. It’s cohesive but chaotic, so throwing it on when you’re in one mood might mean you have to skip around to find the tracks that suit that mood. While it’s far from a road trip staple or a surefire party starter, there’s lots here to love – most of all, its star, who proudly made this album for herself, doing exactly what she wanted to do. Its real value might be in once again pushing open the boundaries for the next weird little kid who doesn’t want to stick to one thing but take up every available inch of whatever lane they drive in.

Las Ruinas is out now on Atlantic Records. Get it here.

Rico Nasty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Flo Milli Lets The Brat Out On ‘You Still Here, Ho?’

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flo milli you still here review
RCA Records

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Flo Mill can really rap. That question was answered as soon as she drew breath on her debut project, Ho, Why Is You Here?, in 2020. As anticipation for its follow-up grew, the new question became whether or not she could expand her repertoire, find new topics to rap about, and layer in emotional depth – doing the things that separate good or even great rappers from recording artists with longevity in addition to short-term success.

A week ago, Flo Milli released her anticipated sophomore project, You Still Here, Ho?, to answer those questions. And while the answer may disappoint those who wanted to see artistic growth in the two years since the 22-year-old Mobile, Alabama rapper first captured all of our attention with her witty raps and bratty charms, the new release doubles down on those qualities to offer an entertaining entry to her growing catalog.

When I first heard Flo Milli, she reminded me of my younger sister and the rap battles we’d have with each other when we were both still in high school, four years apart. There was a juvenile, carefree quality to Milli’s raps, like a classroom roast session. The impression was helped along by her higher-pitched voice and bouncy, singsong rhyme cadence, which was buoyed by percussive, stripped-down, trap-lite production.

The whole package came together to present the persona of a snotty teenager rolling her neck and eyes while dismissively deriding your style, your presence, and your whole approach to life. The closest analog that jumps to mind at the moment is Kyla Pratt’s demeanor in those old WNBA commercials in which the then-child star confronted WNBA players to list in brutally accurate detail every flaw in their respective approaches to basketball.

On You Still Here, Ho? (even the title is haughty, and I really appreciate the commitment to the brand), Flo Milli maintains this cocky, Regina George-ish persona, but fine tunes around the edges to provide a fresh layer of glittery polish to the whole affair. Where the beats on her debut often sounded like first drafts, from the very first track here, the brash “Come Outside” (as in, “I just wanna talk” – as in, “we really gon’ beat yo’ ass”), it’s obvious that more time was spent on fleshing out the backdrops.

To be honest, this really props up Flo’s voice and taunting flow much better, allowing her tracks to sound like finished songs and not a kid’s first swing at recording at the local Boys & Girls Club. The addition of melodies – the sitar threaded throughout “Bed Time,” the ghostly loops on “Ice Baby” – buttress her raps, while the more regressive tracks come off distracting – the synthy percussions on “Big Steppa” – come off more distracting and eat her voice in the mix.

“On My Nerves” marks the slickest update to Flo’s original sound – sparse, but upbeat, giving space for her jabs to land squarely in the middle of their targets’ faces. “You think you street, but you sesame,” she sneers, a prime example of the understated wit of her one-two punchlines. It’s not exactly Shakespeare – and certainly no Jay-Z – but there’s something to the simple humor behind her boasts and jeers that makes them effective and relatable (remember when Lil Wayne said “I’m the bomb like tick-tick?” Yeah, it’s a little like that). The only missteps are when she tries to sing, as on “Tilted Halo.” That is not what we came for.

If Flo Milli’s music seems like it’s aimed more at appealing to middle schoolers than serious hip-hop heads, that’s because it probably is. At just 22 years old, she’s closer to that demographic than she is to Golden Era nostalgists who want to hear “real-life raps” from her. And truth be told, she hasn’t really lived enough life to merit trying to go deep on life lessons, while socio-political rap has always been a tough sell for anybody, let alone women just getting into the rap game. She’s young enough that she’s got time to get there – maybe in two or three projects down the line – but for now, she’s a girl who just wants to have fun.

And so are many of her listeners. As much fuss has been made on the internet about the contemporary class of female rappers’ lack of substance, they’re making the music people want to hear right now. The world is a disaster, women are losing their rights, and the two things it seems we all need are a confidence booster and a break from all the darkness. Sometimes, we just wanna feel like we did when we were kids: snotty, brash, and carefree. You Still Here Ho? lets the brat out.

You Still Here Ho? is out now on RCA Records. Get it here.

Brent Faiyaz Once Said ‘F*ck The World,’ And Now, It Returns The Insult With Destruction On ‘Wasteland’

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brent faiyaz 'wasteland' cover
Lost Kids LLC

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Life as Brent Faiyaz knew it changed by the time summer arrived in 2017. His guest appearance on GoldLink’s “Crew” with Shy Glizzy, which dropped in December 2016, shot him into the spotlight thanks to the perfect hook he provided for the song. While that record is certainly the most impactful towards his upward trajectory, there’s another one that came out two months prior that best speaks to the man we hear today. Sonder, Brent Faiyaz’s group with producers Dpat and Atu, released a record called “Too Fast” which Brent uses to respond to those who “​​say I drive too fast, move too fast, live too fast.” Little did we know this line would foreshadow Brent’s demise a half-decade later.

Brent Faiyaz’s sophomore album, Wasteland, expands on the message from “Too Fast.” Throughout the album’s 19 songs, which include features from big names like Tyler The Creator, Drake, and Alicia Keys as well as fellow Marylanders Joony and Tre’Amani, an all-gas-no-breaks lifestyle is not the only thing that Brent defends. He also critiques the “toxic” label that’s been placed on him, especially after the 2020 release of his F*ck The World EP. “That’s the Internet word that people like to attach to sh*t” and “So if you sing some real sh*t, like what’s toxic? What’s real?” he says to open Wasteland on “Villian’s Theme.” For Brent, his songs detail a very real lifestyle that isn’t some false persona or game of pretend to play into a trend. Brent isn’t being anything, he just is it, and to him, there’s a difference between the two.

As the non-linear and cluttered conversation on “Villian’s Theme” concludes, in comes the intimidating strikes of a violin on “Loose Change.” The first official record of the album is one Brent uses to pour out his complaints about fame like water from a bucket. The ladies complain too much for more of his time and the men are clout chasing and/or trying to knock him off his throne. Following the monetary theme at hand, “Price Of Fame,” finds Brent once again fighting for peace in the spotlight. “They just wanna take me off of here,” he quips on the song before letting us know that fame, glitz, glam, people screaming your name, and the demands “isn’t everything.” In other instances on the album, like on “Gravity,” “Wasting Time,” and momentarily on “Addictions,” Brent appears worn out and exhausted by the requirements of those in his world. For what it’s worth, more times than not, he’s only asked for the bare minimum – especially from women – and it’s for this reason that there’s a better word than toxic to describe the 26-year-old singer.

In all reality, Brent is more selfish than toxic, that’s seemingly the message on Wasteland. Sure, each share qualities that intersect, but I’d argue that the latter better represents the Maryland native. It’s selfishness that leads to him making a red carpet appearance with his side chick on “Oblivion” moments after his baby mother expresses her frustrations towards feeling lonely and uncared for on “Egomaniac.” It’s selfishness that sees Brent check in with nonchalance for a woman and her seemingly unfounded complaints on “Ghetto Gatsby.” “I can’t buy you happiness if you ain’t got it,” he sings. “Move you to a place, still ain’t what you wanted.” Notably, just two songs later comes “Wasting Time,” the Drake-featured track that arrives as an ode to a minimalistic and unbothered relationship, one that brings a twinkle to the eye of Brent.

In a way, it’s a good thing that Brent is very front-facing about his desires; that way you know exactly what you’re getting into with him. He isn’t controlling, he tells you to do as you please on “Dead Man Walking.” He wants you to view the world as he does as he proudly flexes his approaches and offers to teach them on the foot-stomping “Role Model.” Even in his most love-driven moments, your disappointment about his true personality isn’t something he can fix as noted on “Heal Your Heart.” Brent is a rockstar, matter of fact, he’s a “Rolling Stone” as he coolly reminds us. On that song, he sings, “I’m sorry in advance if I let you down,” with enough sincerity and sympathy that you almost believe he’s genuinely apologetic. But as we know, it’s nonchalance towards others hurt by a lifestyle he loves that takes precedent. The real Brent arrives a few lines earlier. “I’m a rolling stone,” he declares. “I’m too wild for you to own / In a whip that’s meant to speed.”

While he’s not opposed to settling down, Brent is opposed to slowing down. He told us there was no such thing as too fast, but as we hear at the end of “Wake Up Call,” that’s not totally true. He realizes this as his car tumbles to destruction as he rushes to try and save his pregnant baby mother from a suicide attempt. During the last seconds of Brent’s frantic phone call with her, she bluntly says, “No, you can’t always get what you want.” He once said F*ck The World, and while he was completely in his right to say that, the world now returns the insult. The thing is, the world – this chaotic Wasteland that Brent finds himself in – is through his own creation. “Life moves fast when you do what you want,” he sings on “Jackie Brown.” What he soon learns through this album’s well-crafted, dark, and vivid records is that the fast life is oftentimes a death race rather than a carefree cruise through the city.

Wasteland is out now via Lost Kids LLC. You can stream it here.

Giveon’s Indecisiveness And Past Traumas Lead Him To Love’s Double-Edged Sword On ‘Give Or Take’

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Giveon 'Give Or Take' cover
Epic Records

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

At the end of 2020, I wrote about Giveon and how his heart quite literally opened and closed with the world that year. The Long Beach native was receptive to romance with his debut EP Take Time, all to watch it depart from his life some seven months later with the release of When It’s All Said And Done. Through it all, we were introduced to Giveon’s charming ways thanks to earnest records like “The Beach,” which doubles as an ode to his Long Beach home, and “Like I Want You.” His baritone-baked lyrics also came from a man who has his own fair share of toxic tendencies, an undeniable aspect that “Favorite Mistake” and “Still Your Best” both make very clear. Nonetheless, through both his good and bad actions, Giveon has been left empty-handed without someone to call his own and hold at night.

Nearly two years removed from the aforementioned projects, it appears that Giveon has realized that love is somewhat transactional. Not so much in the sense of only doing things for a loved one when something is guaranteed in return, but more so in light of the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It’s a revelation that Giveon stumbles upon during a conversation with his mother at the end of his newly-released debut album. “Love will give you what you need / But also, take what you don’t appreciate,” he says to conclude “Unholy Matrimony.” It’s this conversation that provides insight into the title of Giveon’s debut album: Give Or Take.

Prior to the release of Give Or Take, we’ve known Giveon to be someone that can love hard and hold on tight to what he hopes is a fleeting romance. Much of that is true through the music on Give Or Take, but there is a new presence within these baritone soliloquies: fear. It causes him to run for the door when the time for commitment arrives and it even leads to him building walls to unconquerable heights to ensure that he can avoid attending to his heavy baggage. To his benefit, Giveon admits to being battered and bruised by romance at several points on the album. “Scarred” comforts a partner who is emotional and frustrated at their failed attempts to get Giveon to commit to a relationship. “I just don’t want you same way you want me,” he sings. “I can’t give you my heart ‘cause it’s broken.” He delivers this message point-blankly while also suggesting that the pain he’s endured in the past pales in comparison to what his partner will experience due to his rejection.

Through the 15 songs that appear on Give Or Take, Giveon’s past traumas result in indecisiveness that brings stagnation to his journey of progressing from his past and moving toward a freer future. While Giveon seems set on blaming his past failures with love for his current missteps and unpreparedness, there is also a lack of determination to conquer his mountains on his part. On “This Will Do,” he settles for intimate moments for a fan he meets at a show despite knowing it’s not what he truly wants. Two songs later on “Tryna Be,” Giveon presents loyalty and staying faithful as an extraneous task that’s made further difficult due to his occupation as a popular and touring mainstream artist. Even with the discernment that he presents throughout the album, like we hear on “For Tonight,” Giveon sometimes opts to stick within the exhausting cycle of failed love. Perhaps this occurs due to his fear – there it is again – of searching for something new all to end up in the same position sometime later.

Within the rollercoaster ride of Give Or Take, Giveon also experiences a love that moves way too fast for his liking. A freefall from the heavens can only result in a fatal crash on Earth and Giveon is quite aware of this. It’s why he sings “slow it down, don’t wanna miss a moment” on “Make You Mine,” a message he reiterates on “July 16th” adding, “Goin’ too fast, it won’t end well.” Finally, as Giveon’s discernment told him so many times that it would, he and his partner’s speeding bullet towards a lifelong love slams into a wall, bringing everything to an abrupt end. It’s a dramatic explanation of a failed relationship, but as he explains on “Unholy Matrimony,” it comes through the realization that a lifelong commitment to each other is far from the best decision they could make for themselves. “All we’re waiting for behind these chapel doors,” Giveon sings, “is a crashing course to a bad divorce.”

At 27 years old, Giveon discovers the double-edged sword that is love. Its beauty, as well as its harsh and ugly truths, are brought forth to the light, forcing him to accept its never-ceasing presence. It’s through romance that he also learns that the back he stabs within it can return the favor with little remorse. The biggest thing for Giveon on Give Or Take is how he struggles with control in the realm of love. Giving control ends with him stumbling into something he’s not ready for while taking control results in him not receiving a fair chance to find someone to truly call his own for the long haul as his past pains arrive to interrupt that process. Giveon is still trying to find his balance in love, but it would certainly help him a whole lot if he let go of his old baggage to rediscover his footing and make some progress on his journey.

Give Or Take is out now via Epic Records. You can stream it here.

Erica Banks Sets Herself Apart On The Confident ‘Diary Of The Flow Queen’

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erica banks flow queen rx
300

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Ever since making her debut as part of the growing roster of 1501 Certified Entertainment, Dallas rapper Erica Banks has contended with comparisons to her predecessor as the label’s crown jewel, Megan Thee Stallion. The parallels are obvious; the two women are Texas natives who pride themselves on their lyricism and flow, and both embrace an unapologetic approach to their sexual subject matter.

Megan’s standing with the label complicates matters. In early 2020, Megan attempted to renegotiate her contract with 1501. The process has since grown increasingly contentious, with lawsuits, countersuits, and disparaging statements flying from both sides. The timing of the label signing and introducing Banks only served to highlight the ongoing drama – and unfortunately, Erica found herself paying the price.

Tabbed by some fans as a replacement for Meg, signed specifically to spite and undermine Thee Stallion’s successful run in the face of her feud with her erstwhile benefactors, Erica Banks was initially mocked when footage of early performances circulated online. As her viral breakout “Buss It” became popular on TikTok, increasing her exposure to a wider audience, the comparisons likewise became more prominent, even prompting speculation that the two women had beef of their own.

But the thing that gets lost in all of this is that Erica Banks is an accomplished, established rapper in her own right, with four mixtapes to her name already – three self-released — before 1501 ever entered the picture. And now, her debut studio album, Diary Of The Flow Queen, has arrived to further differentiate her from her esteemed colleague and establish her as an artist worth giving attention to on her own merits.

Within moments of pressing play, it becomes apparent that the superficial similarities between Erica and Meg remain on the surface level. While the latter’s punchy delivery can occasionally subsume her Texas drawl, Banks’ accent determines her tempo, slowing her flow down even on the more uptempo tracks. Since she’s still in the early stages of her career – think Meg on the Tina Snow and Fever EPs – Banks has yet to experiment with pop-leaning musical styles, sticking to bass-forward, trunk-thumping Texas beats for the majority of the album.

This works to her advantage on tracks like “Slim Waist” and “Nasty” with Bankroll Freddie, on which she also shows that she has multiple vocal tones to match the mood of the song. While her voice is usually a low-register growl, she can pitch up an octave or two for more sultry come-ons when she isn’t straight-up bragging about her sexual prowess. On the penultimate song, “Work,” she even does some singing – an area where her ostensible rival has stumbled in the past – weaving between her usual rhythmic attack and the melodic flow that dominates rap playlists these days.

There are also few features; the aforementioned Bankroll Freddie, fellow Texan BeatKing, and rising New York rapper DreamDoll (who both appear on “Toot That“) are the only voices other than Erica’s on the album. This allows the DeSoto native to show that she’s capable of holding her own for a full project without growing stale – a testament to the above-mentioned malleability of her voice. Diary Of The Flow Queen may not meander far afield of the same lyrical territory that has been explored by many of the other women in hip-hop taking over the charts lately, but as Cardi B once explained, that’s what the fans want.

More importantly, the album establishes that Erica Banks has her own branch of that lineage, with all the potential to reach the same heights of notoriety as peers like Cardi B, Latto, Saweetie, and yes, even Megan Thee Stallion. She could very well be just one hit away; hopefully, 1501 learned its lesson and extended a contract that will keep their latest star happier than their last.

Diary Of The Flow Queen is out now on 1501 Certified and 300 Entertainment. Get it here.

Erica Banks is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Here’s Why Compton Av’s New Project ‘Net 30’ Deserves Some Attention

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compton av net 30
Compton Av

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Once upon a time, the phrase “Compton rapper” evoked a very different image than the one it might conjure today. Before the very concept of a denizen of the Hub City was revamped to include examples of Black excellence and crunchy granola woke rap, the above-mentioned term suggested an air of menace, as well as urgency. After all, “Straight Outta Compton” wasn’t just a declaration of hometown pride, it was a call to action.

Now that the city has spawned such eclectic artistic standouts as Kendrick Lamar, Buddy, and Westside Boogie, one might think that Compton is no longer producing acts in the vein of NWA, MC Eiht, or more recently, YG. However, there’s a burgeoning underground in the city, producing rappers who are far less mainstream-friendly, but every bit as vital as their gangbanging predecessors. The one you need to know is Compton Av.

Named for the street he grew up on, Av quietly but assuredly built a decade-long career on independent releases such as Thugged Out, Tru 2 The Streets, and All In, becoming something of a local celebrity and a fixture of Compton’s indie rap scene. But with his latest release, the 10-track Net 30, he stakes a claim on the wider world of hip-hop, proving that despite his veteran status, he’s just getting started.

From its opening track, Compton Av lets listeners know what kind of time he’s on. Yes, he’s gangsta as hell, but he’s a businessman, as well, here to teach the finer points of making the transition from the streets to the boardroom. There’s a knowing wit to his rhymes, which find him smirking his way through casually delivered daggers and the sort of raunchy comedy of peers like 1TakeJay and AzChike, but he also drops the occasional gem like a thunderbolt from Zeus himself.

“I done seen record deals and said I wouldn’t take it / And took care of hoe n****s who said I wouldn’t make it,” he says in the self-titled intro. Later, in the interlude “Fucc The Opps,” Av sums up the mindset that drives the reckless lifestyle he touts: “N****s give they life to the set until they lose it / Had a chance to go to the league, the n**** blew it… How you supposed to feel when you grew up in the slums / When they asking ‘where you from,’ you better get yourself a gun.”

While much of the album is given over to turn-up anthems like “Secret,” “Tear It Up,” and “Jumpin,” he also offers upliftment on “I Did It (Winnin),” which calls to mind Jay Rock’s 2018 hit “Win.” “We made it from nothin’, look at God,” he boasts over a triumphant horn loop. And on “Slid’N” featuring West Coast rap godfather Snoop Dogg, he gets off some sinister one-liners, demonstrating both his gangsta bonafides and an unexpectedly creative way with words.

This isn’t game-changing stuff, but it is perhaps more representative of where the average Compton citizen is at than the brainy, jazz-infused raps from some of Av’s more celebrated compatriots. As important as it is to magnify the “high art,” it’s equally necessary to highlight the stuff that will soundtrack the late-night house parties, summertime cookouts, and midnight gang slides that are also a part of the city’s vibrant, rich history. Black folks shouldn’t always have to be excellent to be considered worthwhile and some stories are best told in the blunt language of the culture that created them.

Net 30 is out now via Cook Gods/Rich Off Rap/Empire. Get it here.

Leikeli47 Proves Her Genius On The Eclectic And Innovative ‘Shape Up’

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leikeli47 shape up review
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Back in 2019, the fourth episode of the second season of the Black-ish spinoff Grown-ish featured the debut of Leikeli47’s video for “Tic Boom.” The lead-up to the video throughout the episode found the show’s cast preparing a watch party for a mystery artist’s video premiere, with the cast debating what makes a musical genius. The episode was an obvious reference to then-recent album premieres from the likes of Frank Ocean and Kanye West, who both got name-checked, along with Chief Keef, Drake, and Young Thug.

Then, one character makes an observation that seems obvious in hindsight but highlights an ongoing problem in pop culture – especially when it comes to hip-hop. Why are all the so-called “geniuses” men? Even now, in an era with more female rappers charting than ever before – from Cardi B and Doja Cat to Latto and Saweetie – somehow, female artists still seem to receive less attention and respect than their male counterparts. I was reminded of this over the past weekend, as my social feeds buzzed over Kendrick Lamar’s new album.

Less pronounced was the buzz for Leikeli47’s new album, Shape Up. The culmination of a beauty shop-themed trilogy including 2017’s Wash & Set and 2018’s Acrylic, on the surface, Shape Up also bears all the hallmarks of a work of rap genius. As part of a trilogy, the 14-track project comes with rich mythology of its own built by the masked rapper’s prior works. Leikeli has always defied convention, eschewing both contemporary and traditional hip-hop sounds to craft her own unique, dancefloor-ready take on the genre. She’s as informed by the drag ballroom scene as she is the trap house, with beats featuring influences from house, techno, and dancehall.

She’s also a superb rapper with one hell of a hook; taking a page from the book of the late, great MF DOOM, she has yet to make a public appearance without one of her signature face masks. She makes them herself out of bandanas and balaclavas, occasionally bedazzling or otherwise embellishing them. We don’t even know her real name; she’s like a modern-day hip-hop superhero, using her anonymity to put the focus squarely on the boundary-pushing, eclectic style she’s pioneering.

It’s hard to hear booming, confident jams like “Chitty Bang” and “LL Cool J” without wondering how they aren’t as ubiquitous as those of her female peers – let alone the breezy No. 1s accumulated by men like Drake, Future, and Jack Harlow. They’re every bit as catchy and transportive, every bit as relevant to the times, every bit as quotable and cocksure, with lines like “It’s all checks and balances, baby, the world is mine,” feeling just as much like potential Instagram captions as any of the catchphrases the above-mentioned names have offered recently.

And Leikeli can sing, too. I mean, legitimately sing, not that weird, atonal humming thing a lot of rappers have been doing in recent years. On “Done Right” and “Hold My Hand,” she switches to full-on R&B, offering tender reflections on romance and relationships minus the toxicity that’s marked the genre lately. Meanwhile, “BITM” and “Jay Walk” practically beg the listener to catwalk, strut, and vogue like it was the ball culture heyday of the late 1980s. And lest anyone doubt her rap skills, her storytelling takes the fore on “Free To Love,” while her wordplay shines on “Instant Classic.”

If this album — this consistency and cohesion in eclecticism, this total commitment to the presentation, is not the work of a genius, then the list of who all deserves such a title needs to get several dozen names shorter. If anything, the muted buzz of excitement leading up to this project’s release just proves that in hip-hop, eclecticism can be a disadvantage as much as a strength. Pushing the genre’s boundaries can earn an artist a lot of love from critics and fans, but it can just as easily take them too far beyond the margins for rap centrists who want the genre to remain the same as much as they want it to grow.

It also proves that hip-hop still has a long way to go in terms of truly including women in the conversation. Just recently, both Lil Wayne and Ja Rule admonished their peers and successors to acknowledge the contributions of women in hip-hop, with Wayne singling out Missy Elliott for her own innovative catalog. Incidentally, one of the names Leikeli47 is most often compared to is Missy (both are from Virginia, which may explain their sympathetic resonance with one another). Sometimes, it feels very much like we’ve failed the latter, who only recently began to receive flowers in the form of lifetime achievement awards and belated shout-outs from the rappers she’s inspired. The same can’t happen for Leikeli47. They say genius is never appreciated in its time, but today, we certainly have the opportunity to acknowledge her as the genius she’s already proven herself to be.

Shape Up is out now on RCA Records. Get it here.

Kendrick Lamar Takes Cancel Culture To Task On ‘Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’

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Kendrick Mr. Morale Review
Ralph Ordaz / Top Dawg

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Kendrick Lamar albums are a little like Star Trek movies. Or maybe they’re like the movies made by high-profile Hollywood directors who sign on to do a big-budget blockbuster so the studios will greenlight their passion project. You know: One for them, one for me. Ever since releasing his first official album, Section.80, in 2011, Kendrick has always seemed to espouse this pattern. Good Kid, Maad City and DAMN. were very much “for them.”

Yes, they bore all the hallmarks of a K. Dot album – dense, thematically complex lyricism and potent, personal storytelling – but sonically they were rigid, with almost workmanlike structure, giving plenty of mainstream-friendly bops and radio hits to go along with the headier elements; the proverbial spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Likewise, Section.80 and To Pimp A Butterfly were much more personal reflections, sprawling and musically adventurous.

In that spirit, his fifth and final album under the Top Dawg Entertainment banner very much follows the previously established pattern. It is very much for him. And yet, at the same time, because it’s a Kendrick Lamar album, it’s also very much for us – us, the listeners, us, the society, us, the culture. He’s got a lot on his mind – who doesn’t these days? – and he wrestles with these thoughts out loud, not just to wrangle some sense out of them for himself, but also perhaps to give us permission to do the same.

On Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, his overarching target appears to be “cancel culture.” You know, the pop culture pundit’s bogeyman du jour, the atmosphere of restrictive political correctness that makes it so you just can’t tell a joke anymore (or call people racial slurs or make sexist comments to or about women), dammit. He mentions it more than a few times, on songs such as “N95” and “Worldwide Steppers,” offering missives like, “N****s killed freedom of speech, everyone sensitive.” He also touches on hot-button topics like vaccines and their backlash on “Savior,” seeming to chastise both sides of the debate.

I once complained that it’s hard to pin down exactly what Kendrick’s position is on any given issue. He’s good at being vague. Anything he says can be taken as a metaphor or a projection. Maybe he’s speaking from someone else’s point of view. It’s always been his most frustrating habit – at least, for me – because you never really know what his politics are or what he wants you to take away from any given song, lyric, or project as a whole. Even more infuriating is that he does it on purpose (anyone who can write the way he does could easily make his points plain).

He does this here, as well, but this time there’s more going on beneath the surface. It feels like the sugar and the medicine are both in the lyrics. On projects like Good Kid and DAMN., Kendrick’s pop courting material would hide guidance or critique in radio-friendly production (see: “Swimming Pools” or “Humble”). But on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Kendrick appears to nearly agree with woke-phobic listeners, using their favorite buzz terms to lull them and lower their defenses before feeding them the same messages that the social justice warriors would have them hear – only from a more empathetic perspective.

On “Auntie Diaries,” one of the most personal and revealing songs in a catalog stuffed nearly to bursting with them, Kendrick unpacks decades of ingrained homo- and transphobia. For years in hip-hop, the culture has struggled with its depictions and diction surrounding queer people. Kendrick’s fellow LA natives Tyler The Creator and Doja Cat were both censured earlier in their careers for letting a certain slur fly in their music or on social media, and both had a hard time articulating the dynamics behind their free use.

Kendrick, naturally, gets it right, expanding on how he thought as a child, constantly exposed to a stream of offensive jokes without having the context for their offense, even as he struggled to relate to an aunt and cousin coming out through the lens of his religious upbringing. It’s ambitious and thought-provoking; by showing the work, his face turn becomes genuine and earned. There are plenty of rappers in his peer group who could afford to do the same introspection.

Then, on “Mother I Sober,” he confronts one of the deepest, darkest open secrets of not just the rap world, but the larger Black culture it stems from. He admits and addresses sexual abuse – especially the kind that is most often committed, the kind by trusted family members against children too young to be aware that anything is even going on. He relates this to rappers, who he says bury “they pain in chains and tattoos,” whose cavalier, dismissive attitude toward sex, women, and yes, even their own misdeeds, can be directly connected to their own abuse.

This sympathy for the devil is highlighted by the extended presence of Kodak Black, someone to whom Kendrick is often contrasted by denizens of Rap Twitter, and who was convicted of sexual assault not too long ago. (It’s amusing to think that, with his official account lying dormant for months at a time, Kendrick is lurking the timeline with the rest of us, taking notes on exactly who to tap for a feature – or even secretly laying the groundwork for the impactful surprise appearances himself.) He seeks empathy for the troubled, younger rapper, even as he acknowledges the harm he’s caused. Maybe in doing so, he can open him up – along with the wider culture – to the possibility of redemption.

Again and again on the double album, Kendrick’s mission seems to be either to end the pervading sense of “cancel culture’s” harmful tendency to put its subjects on the defensive or to dismantle the very concept of “cancel culture” to begin with. It’s hard to be sure; after all, it is Kendrick Lamar. But what he’s doing here – baring his own faults and pointing to his own evolution as a means to demonstrate how true growth operates and should take place (out of the public spotlight, often with the help of a trained therapist) – is groundbreaking in hip-hop.

Sure, many artists have tackled the subjects of their own anxieties and insecurities, but rarely has that work been so closely tied to the zeitgeist. Kendrick can look both inward and externally and draw the connections between himself and his audience to offer the direction he sees as critical for the growth of the community – even if he denies his own role as a role model on “Savior” (along with peers like Drake and J. Cole). He never outright says “you should all do this,” but there’s the sense that he truly believes he can lead by example, even if he doesn’t always think anyone should follow him.

I’m not sure that this is an album I’ll run back a whole bunch. After all, with its quirky production – much of which performed by Kendrick himself under the name Oklama – it very much falls into K. Dot’s “one for me” category. But some of these poignant, powerful observations and self-reflections could well be conversation pieces decades from now as listeners recount how they shook them out of their complacency, changed their viewpoints, or gave them permission to accept their own flaws and begin the work of healing. With his final TDE album, Kendrick appears to have finally figured out how to make one for all of us.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is out now via Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath, and Interscope Records. Get it here.

Jack Harlow’s ‘Come Home The Kids Miss You’ Sets The Tone For Rap’s Next Decade

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jack harlow come how the kids miss you review rx
Getty Image/Ralph Ordaz

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Drake’s influence is all over Jack Harlow’s new album, Come Home The Kids Miss You. I don’t just mean in the sense that he appears on the album’s magnetic standout track “Churchill Downs,” on which Jack sounds almost exactly like his hero. But throughout the album, I couldn’t help but feel the same sense I did when I first popped Drake’s mixtape Comeback Season into my car’s CD player 15 years ago.

To be clear, this is a good thing. Harlow has been maligned over the years, perhaps somewhat unfairly, for being kind of, well, goofy. In hip-hop, there’s more or less always been the prevailing attitude that rappers should carry themselves with exaggerated coolness. Even throughout the “keep it real” era, nobody really wanted most rappers to be themselves. Look at who all was elevated to the culture’s upper echelons.

From The Notorious B.I.G’s mafioso raps to Eminem’s serial killer horrorcore, over-the-top personas have been the order of the day. In more recent years, the keep-it-real ethos has been completely blown away by characters like Rick Ross and Future, who couldn’t be realistically expected to live what they rap about and still be alive to rap about it. Tucked somewhere into the middle of all that stylistic evolution, the regular guys who exploded in the noughties were kind of exceptions to the rule.

Drake stood at the forefront of that movement and was its de facto face. When he dropped Comeback Season in 2007, he had yet to become the internationally recognized global superstar he is today or would become on his next tape, the breakout So Far Gone. He sat somewhere between the wordy headiness of his backpack rap heroes like Little Brother and Slum Village and the pop-reaching sensibilities of 106 & Park heartthrobs like Trey Songz and Pretty Ricky.

His rhymes were marked less by the belligerent boastfulness of 50 Cent and Lil Jon’s constellation of crunk associates than by a plainspoken earnestness. Drake just wanted to be successful, and he wanted to do it by making relatable, semi-sincere rap music about having his heart broken and chasing his dreams. Nary a gunshot was fired, not a kilo was sold. No one got stomped out in the club, and Drake himself had a relatively average success rate with women. He felt like an underdog but carried himself with the confidence that he wouldn’t be for long.

On Come Home The Kids Miss You, Jack Harlow bears the same sensibility. He’s sort of always had a similar outlook and an introspective approach. But now, his circumstances somehow match both the confidence and the humility. He’s got multiple No. 1s to his name, but he’s also an outsider in hip-hop (so much as rapping-ass white guys can still be considered outliers in a world where Eminem still tops the album chart and Lil Dicky makes poop jokes on a hit cable TV show).

So when Jack shoots his shot at pop stars as he does on “Dua Lipa,” which not only name-checks the British singer but also accurately predicts the inevitable Twitter backlash for doing so, it does give “heart-eye emojis in the comments” energy — but success doesn’t seem completely out of reach. When Jack titles one of the bouncier tracks “I Got A Shot,” you believe him.

The parallels to the prologue don’t stop there. With every successive generation reaching back a couple of decades for inspiration – Drake famously leaned heavily on ‘90s R&B samples throughout his oeuvre – it might be odd to think that it’s time for Gen Z rappers to begin mining the platinum era. But that time has come – sorry, fellow Millennials, you’re officially old now – as Harlow looks to 106&Park mainstays like Pharrell and Snoop Dogg’s “Beautiful” for “Side Piece,” Tweet’s “My Place” for “Lil Secret,” and Fergie’s “Glamorous” for his chart-topping single “First Class.”

In this, Harlow defies convention as much as his new mentor did with Comeback Season and So Far Gone. The defining sound of our modern era is very much “808s and trap breaks”; with Come Home, Jack signals what perhaps could be the next evolution of the sound for the still-young decade ahead – just like someone we know. He’s willing to take the risk of diverging from the mainstream with his glossy collection of synth horns harkening back to the days when T.I. and Bow Wow held radio in a chokehold. But he’s also perfectly positioned to be the one to spark this latest nostalgia wave, what with TikTok being deluged in 2000s hits and radio playing a song sampling Mariah Carey four times an hour.

In my review for Harlow’s debut album, That’s What They All Say (I love his penchant for wordy titles), I pointed to the Kentucky MC’s potential and obvious passion and love for the craft of rap. On Come Home, he certainly lives up to that potential – perhaps even exceeds it – by pairing it with ambition. Before, Jack was satisfied with walking in the footsteps of prior greats. Now, it looks very much like he intends to make some of his own.

Come Home The Kids Miss You is out now on Atlantic. Get it here.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.