After chilling out listening to ‘4 Minutes All Me’ all week I decided to check out some more aggressive OMB Shawniebo cuts before I turned into some sort of happy lazy walrus or sloth or some other lazy animal. His newest track, ‘I’m Gr8’ certainly fit the bill.
Shawniebo’s Mozzy-esque voice is perfect for an aggressive track like this. A couple of highlights and quick notes here…
THE RETURN OF WOLF MASK! This guy is quickly becoming my favorite rap video cameo
I’m feeling the Arizona Diamondbacks hat that Shawnie is rocking
Great chorus/hook. You are Gr8 Shawniebo don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Anyone know what the deal with the lanyard with what looks like laminated photos on it is that Shawnie is rocking around his neck? I noticed he was also wearing these in the ‘4 Minutes All Me’ video. I’m speculating that it could be photos of fallen friends and he’s wearing it like a chain as a tribute to them?
One minor quibble I had here is that I wish he got rid of that producer tag that you hear numerous times in the video; I checked out his full project ‘Problem Child’ today too and it was a pretty hard mixtape overall but for some reason a lot of the tracks on it had that same tag over and over again.
In any case, good new song from OMB Shawniebo as he builds on his recent momentum and continues to quickly move up the power rankings of bay area rappers.
This is just too smooth for me to even handle right now. Saw this on the sisilafami Tumblr and have just been just basking in its hazy lushness all week. I feel like I’m in heaven.
I’ve been listening to a lot of OMB Peezy this year but I have to start checking out OMB Shawniebo’s output more because it seems like he’s a force to be reckoned with in his own right, and that’s probably an understatement. I like his sort of guttural flow the way he spits out each word in a sort of a Mozzy-esque manner but is still doing his own thing.
The beat (by Ant Beatz) is so perfect that the first time you listen to the song you almost might overlook how raw and heartfelt the subject matter is; just as one example that stands out “Call from the bros and it’s cracking I’m coming bout action, heart full of passion that they broke when they killed my daddy” or “They don’t really want it, b*tch they only pop for a moment, crazy how I gave my brother money and he feel like he owe me.” “I used to watch my pops whip it up in a pot, then KO’d every shot he had up under the couch. I don’t think they really want to play. I pray to God I live another day. Damn, stupid niggas f*cking up the stilo, get it, that’s how the game go, run up bust it and reload.” Also, I couldn’t get the exact lyric down and didn’t want to misquote him, but the part about wanting to give his younger brother good advice but knowing that he isn’t living right himself hit hard. Shawniebo goes so hard on this one you can really just feel what he’s saying.
This isn’t a fashion blog but I also have to commend Shawniebo on the sharp black Adidas tracksuit with the ‘Three stripes’ wording on the piping. Not to mention his boy in the Gap sweatshirt, which I can get behind because unlike a YSL jacket it’s something a rapper is wearing that I can actually afford, and I like the ice blue with the dark blue color combo. Last but certainly not least the guy in the wolf mask is also firing on all cylinders with the sweater that looks like the bastard child of a Coogi and a drug rug, a nice silver chain and watch, NOT TO MENTION THAT HE’S WALKING AROUND RICHMOND IN A WOLF MASK.
I really hope 4 Minutes All Me blows up because he definitely deserves it. There are a lot of songs that come out that you get hyped about and bump for a few weeks and then they inevitably fade into the sunset but this song is just so well-made, so real, and so epic between the beat and rapping that I honestly can picture myself still bumping this in my regular rotation 10 years from now, it just has that kind of classic staying power.
It’s been a long, hot July out here, but we’re still hanging in there and I finished my top 10 songs in a bit more of a timely fashion this month. This month took me down a lot of interesting paths as I stayed on my Lil Chicken/Milwaukee grind that started last month via Rap Music Hysteria, then a post from the Martorialist on Berner had me go down a huge Berner rabbit hole and after studying his back catalogue as if I was writing a dissertation on him, made me realize that this husky Bay Area renaissance man actually has quite a few jams, then from there I was bumping another large white rapper Jelly Roll for a couple of days to see what he’s been up to lately, checked out the new projects from A-Wax, Meek Mill, and 21 Savage before getting really into Mac J and having him take over the end of the month.
Lil Chicken – No Grease
This song is from the end of 2016 but Lil Chicken wins the award for hardest first verse of 2017 and maybe hardest song in general with ‘No Grease’ – “See the pain in my eyes this sh*t gettin tiring, eyes get bug as hell when I hear them sirens. Money, diamonds, gold, we a bunch of pirates, watching out for narcs trapping out a hybrid. Fiend keep nodding off man he can’t fight it, this dog biting nigga’s ears punching like Tyson.” I’m not sure what I like better the very apt pirate comparison or the image of him trapping out of a Nissan Leaf or Toyota Prius. I also love the weary, almost strained voice that Big Chicken P raps in on this one; the trap has been good to him but he’s also growing tired of the unwanted complications that come with it.
“All these motherf*cking grits I feel like Rich Porter, b*tch we ain’t no small fries we taking big orders, these niggas b*tches I’m finna change my hustle to extortion, phones slapping back to back they sound like walkie talkies.” Lil Chicken just goes too hard on this one.
Berner – Float
As I said in my mea culpa on Berner, “In a more just world, with this type of chorus and vibes, Berner would be making royalty money off of Sandals or Atlantis or one of those other Caribbean all-inclusive resorts using his song in their newest commercial.” After a long journey into this affable weed/fashion entrepeneur’s catalogue, I have to admit the man certainly has some gems I’ve missed over the years; the highlight of which would be the airy and enjoyable ‘Float’ from his 2016 Packs album.
Mac J – Differences
I don’t know much about Mac J and only heard about him after reading about him on Rey’s Cafe a couple weeks ago but he certainly has some absolute bangers in his catalogue, my favorite of which thus far is ‘Differences’. The beat for this one is ridiculous too. Based on the Mac J playlist Rey’s Cafe put together I definitely want to start listening to more of this north Sacramento artist and check out the rest of his output, including his new mixtape ‘Local Celebrity‘.
“I’ve got it all on me riding round in the foreign, Ballys on, white folks staring at me, make me feel important”
““Me and Max posted up in the stash house playing Pitty Pat, I feel like Chris Brown all these junkies hollering gimme that. Spanish ho like Dora that b*tch pulled up with a mac, said he want 44 watch me pull up with them racks.”
I certainly didn’t think that 2017 would feature a post about Berner on this blog, but that’s where we find ourselves today. Inspired by The Martorialist’s recent earnest decision to give it the old college try and delve into Berner’s voluminous back catalogue, on a recent long drive upstate and back I decided to make the perhaps reckless decision to do the same and jump head first into listening to multiple Berner albums in a row since I had many an hour to kill. I was fairly skeptical, and to be sure, there were certainly some forgettable songs, but I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of the Cookies purveyor’s portfolio. And with so many projects out over the last couple of years, Berner is nothing if not prolific. I can kind of get into his luxorious yet relaxing vibe that he promotes in much of his material, and as a fanboy of mid-2000s New York rap I can definitely get behind a dude that reaches out to Styles P to collaborate on an entire album with him and also does an EP with Killa Cam. What’s not to like about that? So let’s do a mea culpa and give this affable weed and clothing entrepenuer some much-deserved and belated credit.
Is it just me or is this one of the nicest beats ever? Maybe it’s just the hot weather and the fact that it’s been a long work week but it has me lulled into such a peaceful and tranquil haze. No idea what the sample is from, almost has like an 80s radio vibe to it but it sounds oddly familiar but still new.
Yhung T.O is part of Vallejo, California’s SOB X RBE, which has broken out over the past year with songs like ‘Lane Changing’ and ‘Calvin Cambridge’. There are so many guys in SOB X RBE that I almost can’t keep track of them all but I love the fact that after their successful debut album they’re now also all going out on their own now and branching out/multiplying, releasing their own solo material and featuring on other people’s songs solo etc. For example, Slimmy B’s verse on fellow Vallejo rapper Nef the Pharaoh’s bombastic ‘Bling Blaow’ or DaBoii’s ‘Humble’ (Props to The Martorialist for introducing me to both those songs). I also really liked Lul G’s ‘Shots Yo Way’. ‘Love the Way’ appears on Yhung T.O’s debut mixtape ‘On My Momma’ which came out 2 weeks ago. On My Momma is a really strong mixtape especially as a debut from such a young artist doing his first solo project, emerging from a group which is still fairly new in and of itself. You can check out the whole mixtape here on Datpiff
PINK CHARDONNAY 