Mr Muthafuckin eXquire - The Big Fat Intro (produced by Sick Sentz)

“Bipolar, Zoloft, antidepressants
Wrestling with demons, I’m caught in a full nelson
Bob Backlund, all my problems overlapping
If it aint that, it’s this then it’s that then
Still strapped in, fuck the world is my last action
Middle finger high while they lower my casket
Soul blackening, lord knows I’m on my last one
Only way I feel Ima make it is through rappin’…

It’s quite telling that this no-hook, all-verse track was what Mr Muthafuckin Exquire chose to begin his very first mixtape with. It’s rife with him sounding gully as fuckkk while honestly locking horns with all this self doubt and disillusionment that he’s facing. It’s introspection done well, imho - He digs sharply into uncomfortable crevices but never complacently settles into the corners of defeat or self pity.  He does it so well in fact that, by the end of the track, when he spits a clenched-jaw FUCK YOU to everyone who questions his hustle, it comes off as being defiant and fierce instead of tired and cliche.

All of these interesting dimensions are probably most evident midway through the song when Mr Muthafuckin Exquire, without losing a step in his verse, barks the following lines out:

“Put my life on the line without a safety net,
Make decisions that I’m prayin I won’t regret…”

That #lay_it_all_on_the_line rappp. Respect.

Danny Brown - 30

It just hit me that I hadn’t posted anything about the rap album I listened to the most in the last couple of months i.e Danny Brown’s ‘XXX’. So, here’s my favourite track on it.

Didn’t think that a song that started with a lol-arious “Sent ya bitch a dick pic and now she need glasses” line would get real. But then it did.

….
Hurt, hope that drugs will help the pain go away
But all these thoughts up in my head made the sane go astray
So step inside the mind
That revolves around the rhyme
And every time he close his eyes, visions of white lines
Dying in the arms of a blond blue-eyed 20-something
Don’t know her name, but the paramedics chest pumping
30-something black male OD’ed off pills that he wasn’t prescribed
But they took his life
Left behind a daughter that don’t really even know him
Coz her momma thought he wouldn’t make a living off poems
But it was a long journey on a rocky road
Had a hoodie on and a jacket in the snow
Walking in the cold on the way to the studio
Smoking on a loosey, that was just a couple years ago
Dropped a couple free mixtapes on the net
Niggas tried to front like it wasn’t all that
But guess what bitch I’m coming back
Guess what bitch I’m coming back

Signed to Fool’s Gold and everything’s all gnarly
Now these bitches want my number to get up in the party
Came a long way from extension cords in the window
Borrowing neighbours’ power just to plug up the Nintendo
Where the ovens never closed and stoves never off
Every winter so cold, nigga sleeping wearing scarves
But I would always tell myself that it’s gonna get better
You know who you is, you the greatest rapper ever
So now the pressure’s on, to prove that voice right
Some people never knew they goals, I knew my whole life
So now his turns up, fixing up to bat
Pitching singles to the label when I use to pitch crack
I never learned to rap, always knew how
Ever since a nigga 8, I knew what I would do now
When I turned 28, they like ‘what you gon do now?’
And now a nigga 30, so I don’t think y’all heard me
For the last 10 years, I’ve been so fucking stressed
Tears in my eyes, let me get this off my chest
The thoughts of no success got a nigga chasing death
Doing all these drugs in hopes of OD’ing next
Triple X

#That how-far-I’ve-come rappp
#That how-far-will-I-fall rappp
#That walls-closing-in rappp
#That facing-failure rappp
#That can’t-help-but-scream rappp
#That tears-in-my-eyes rappp
#That lump-in-yr-throat rappp.

The dude just looked himself dead in the eye, poured his heart out and left it all in the dirt. I don’t think I could ask for much more from an artist.