If you were to take my creative essence and distill it down to its core components you’d eventually find a small group of individuals that have served as the foundation for everything I love and believe in. Within that highly-exclusive lineup, I can personally guarantee you that Kanye West would be one its primary figures.
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When I first heard Rae Sremmurd’s “No Flex Zone” back in 2014, I assumed it was a joke. Decidedly removed from hip-hop both as a genre and a culture, I didn’t understand what the song was about or why people enjoyed it in the first place. In fact, I was so not up on the culture that I interpreted the song literally, viewing it as some sort of anti-workout anthem created by (what appeared to be) two teenagers. I wasn’t a hater. I just didn’t get it.
The duo, composed of brothers Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi, were 19 and 23 respectively at the time of the video. Assuming they were the next Soulja Boy-esque novelty act (or at the very least the next Soulja Boy-esque one-hit wonder), I wrote the group off until years later. Of course, now that we live in a post-Lil Pump, post-Lil Tay world, I know there are no age restrictions on clout, but at the time I was as confused as I was fascinated. The music video left me with so many lingering questions, chief amongst them ‘why do people like this?’
Needless to say, I eventually saw the light of Rae Sremmurd as I embarked on my own personal journey with hip-hop and came to enjoy their music for what it is. Now that we’re four years removed from their anti-flex unveiling to the world, I’m a much more open-minded music fan with a deeper understanding of both hip-hop and Rae Sremmurd’s place within it.
Aside from my personal genre-specific journey, it’s also safe to say that Rae Sremmurd are far from a one-hit wonder. Apart from a couple of tracks that are overtly-misogynous and now unfortunately-political, their debut record is practically inches away from classic territory. The wide range of slow jams, turn-up shit, and practical advice still make the album a fun listen and worth revisiting all these years later.
Two years after their debut, following dozens of features, a few worldwide tours, and constant social media solidification, Rae Sremmurd’s sophomore effort proved they were here for the long-haul. Just as forceful and fun as their debut, Sremmlife 2 cemented their place in the scene and secured their spot in history thanks to the ever-powerful help of a meme. While the Mannequin Challenge may have overshadowed some of Sremmlife 2’s deeper cuts, the sequel stood just as tall as the original while also showing off how far the brothers had evolved in only two years.
Now in 2018, we find ourselves faced with SR3MM, the group’s cleverly-titled third record which is a triple album of feel-good hip-hop. As with most three-disc albums, there were many things that could have gone wrong with this third entry in the SremmLife series, but impressively, young and brash as they are, the duo fell prey to almost none of them.
In an era where hip-hop seems to be openly exploiting streaming, we’ve seen an absolute deluge of bloated, overly-long, 20-plus track albums in recent months. From Migos and Post Malone to Drake and Lil Yachty, the past calendar year has been marred by a glut of albums containing music whose sole purpose seems to be racking up streaming numbers. While the music on these (extra)long-players are often decent to good, it feels like some musicians are content to forgo artistry in favor of chasing the numbers game.
What makes SR3MM so refreshing is that not only is it a great album, but the duo decided to take an interesting slant on it. On paper, it’s the same as those albums cited above with 27 tracks clocking in at a collective hour and forty-one minutes. However, instead of inundating the listener with song after song of the same, the duo decided to chop their offering up into three even pieces, each with a different flavor.
The first third, created by the same minds we know and love, gives listeners nine tracks of a “traditional” Rae Sremmurd album. That is followed by Swaecation, a Swae Lee solo album, and then Jxmtro, a Slim Jxmmi solo album. It’s an interesting way to silo off the tracklist, and a slightly more artistic framing device than dumping two dozen tracks on Spotify in the hopes of tricking the RIAA.
I was inspired to write about this album (or these albums) because this release took me by surprise. This post started as a paragraph review for Swim Into The Sound’s May new music roundup, but (obviously) spiraled into something more significant than that. SR3MM wasn’t a record I was particularly anticipating. I like the group as much as the next guy, but I listened to each single maybe once and went in with almost nonexistent expectations. Perhaps because of this noncommittal starting point, I came out of my first listen absolutely floored.
One thing that’s always been refreshing about Rae Sremmurd is that, despite their well-covered (some may say trite) lyricism, they always choose interesting beats. While this can likely be chalked up to honorary third member Mike Will Made-It, that doesn’t change the fact that the group’s instrumentals are a breath of fresh air. Throughout SR3MM there are guitar-laden bangers, slow-moving crooners, hyper-technical rap tracks, and everything in between. When everything sounds “trappy” in 2018, it’s cool to have an album that breaks that trend entirely.
On top of the refreshing take on instrumentation, it’s fantastic to watch each artist explore their own sound so fully and lean even harder into their respective musical influences without feeling “tied” to the Rae Sremmurd name. Throughout Swaecation, Swae Lee slows things down, takes his time, and builds a warm, summery soundscape of love and affection. Meanwhile on Jxmtro, Jxmmi embraces his more aggressive rapping style to show off his technical chops, lyrical proficiency, and ear for beats.
Both as a whole and when taken piece by piece, SR3MM is a vibrant and opulent feel-good hip-hop record. Early single “Powerglide” features Juicy J and sees each rapper spitting immaculate bars over a propulsive beat that jostles the listener around like a reckless Uber ride. “T’d Up” and “CLOSE” are additional highlights from the joint album that find each member executing their respective duties flawlessly. Throughout the entire release, Swae and Jxmmi seem more sure of their voices (both separately and collectively) than ever before.
There are lots of comparisons you can use to contextualize Rae Sremmurd. Most easily, you could draw parallels between SR3MM and Speakerboxxx/The Love Below given how “segmented” each artist’s contribution feels (though they would disagree with you). Alternatively, you could make comparisons to current trap superstars Migos with Swae Lee as the heartthrob, melody-first, feature-rich Quavo, Slim as the hyper-technical rapping Takeoff, (and I guess Mike Will as the foundational wildcard Offset). But the truth is any comparison is inherently flawed because Rae Sremmurd are in their own class.
On paper, Rae Sremmurd is “just” two rappers writing songs about women, drugs, and money, but the hook is that their personality and love for each other bleeds through their songs so fully that none of that matters. Even when covering well-trodden territory, that genericism never drags you down for long because it’s more about the two of them than anything else. On SR3MM it feels like both Swae and Jxmmi have more to say, and not just because they have more room to say it. The record is personable, vast, and joyous, the rare case of a triple album that feels earned, planned-out, and deserved. You can tell they care, you can tell they’re good at what they do, and perhaps most importantly, you can tell they’re having a great time doing it. Sometimes there’s nothing more to it than that.
Letter From the Editor: The writer of this piece would like to apologize in advance for the abject stupidity contained within the following wall of text. If you’re brave enough to subject yourself to the mania that’s about to unfold, then you have my admiration, gratitude, respect, and appreciation. Thank you for understanding, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Lil Pump is a dreadlocked 17-year old rapper from Florida who first began making waves in late 2016 when his song “D Rose” became an unexpected viral hit. Over the span of a few short months, the wrist-obsessed track had garnered millions of plays on Soundcloud and over one hundred million curious YouTube clicks. By the end of 2017, Lil Pump (whose real name is Gazzy Garcia) had established himself as a mainstream success when his song “Gucci Gang” peaked at #3 on the Billboard charts. Spawning from his self-titled debut, the alliterative hit quickly became the focal point of a heated debate on the declining state of rap music rap music, the ongoing idocratization of popular culture, and the bare minimum required to pass for lyricism in the year of our Lord 2017.
Expertly covered by both Rolling Stone and The New York Times, Mr. Pump has become a figure at the forefront of the budding “Soundcloud Rap” movement. This subgenre is a spin-off of Trap that’s focused on crafting a particular brand of blown-out, vapid, and repetitive hip-hop that, while lyrically substanceless, still manages to be catchy, memorable, and (most importantly) energetic. It’s hype-up music that’s been distilled so many times that words practically don’t matter.
I’ve already discussed my conflicted feelings on the genre back in August, and while some members of this scene are still objectively-horrific human beings, I’m willing to admit that I’ve come around to Lil Pump thanks to the catchiness of the aforementioned “Gucci Gang.” While the man himself should never be looked up to as an idol, Garcia is still making exciting creations within a field that I’m morbidly fascinated by.
Like most rappers, Pump’s songs typically center around the same award-winning trifecta of drugs, money, and women. What makes “Gucci Gang” unique is the fact that it ticks all these boxes while also managing to be accessible to a mainstream audience. Soundcloud Rap’s previous biggest success came in the form of “Look At Me!,” a song whose lyrics are probably just a touch too edgy for mainstream audiences.
Meanwhile “Gucci Gang” has just the right mix of garish colors and catchy lyrics, both of which are accompanied by a distinct feeling of “newness” that helped it stand out from the crowd. Additionally, the song’s bouncy three-syllable chorus proved perfectlymemeable, ripe for parody, and endlessly reworkable, all of which led to a song that hit, and lingered in the cultural consciousness for longer than anyone ever expected. Possibly even a reflection of our society at large, “Gucci Gang” is an undeniable success no matter how you cut it.
Outside of the song itself, Lilliam Pumpernickel has also gained fans through numerous extra-musicalantics including second-floor balcony jumps, a love for iCarly’s Miranda Cosgrove, and a running joke that he’s a Harvard Graduate. Essentially, he’s not afraid to be a meme, and that lack of fear makes him even stronger. Complete with his own catchphrase, there are many reasons to be entertained by Lil Pump, and all of these elements combined help explain his meteoric rise to success.
Though my numerous listens to “Gucci Gang,” I began to approach the song the same way that many others did: first with curiosity, then ironic enjoyment, then genuine adoration. I can’t stress enough that the lyrics are nothing to write home about, however one stanza in particular stands out amongst the rest like a bright, shining star:
My lean cost more than your rent, ooh (it do)
Your momma still live in a tent, yuh (brr)
Still slangin’ dope in the ‘jects, huh? (yeah)
Me and my grandma take meds, ooh (huh?)
These bars initially seemed like a single metaphysical barb amongst a sea of relatively-straightforward brags and boasts, so I explained them away as a one-off lyric with no deeper significance. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this line was just the tip of the iceberg.
By the time December had rolled around, “Gucci Gang” had won the honor(?) of being recognized not once, but twice in Swim Into The Sound’s 2017 Un-Awards. While part of a largely-negative post, I shined a relatively-positive light on “Gucci Gang” as my second-biggest “WTF” moment of the year (second only to Bhad Bhabie) in which I found myself surprisingly endeared to both equally-trashy artists. Later on in the proceedings, I cited the lyrics above specifically as the single “Weirdest Flex” of 2017 (barely edging out a Drake lyric about napping).
In researching the Pump-penned lines for that write-up I found myself jumping between various Genius pages and in doing so, I quickly began to uncover a conspiracy deep as the Carly Rae Jepsen Cinematic Universe: Lil Pump has an unshakable fixation with the elderly.
It’s no secret that artists tend to use the same concepts, thoughts, and ideas over and over again throughout their work. Usually in hip-hop, these recurring topics (like drugs, money, and women for instance) are framed by using twists on conventional language that are given new meanings within the scene’s culture. From “bricks” to “bands” to “bitches” every possible theme has dozens of different synonyms that can be switched out interchangeably to keep the rhyme fresh and the topic from going stale.
However, slang goes in and out of popular vernacular like the tides of the ocean, and Monsieur Pump is not above these familiar tropes. While drugs, money, and women remain the primary topics around which Pump waves his tales, he, on more than one occasion, has used his grandma, or the grandmother of the listener as a reference point for these interests.
Of course he likes lean, and naturally, he talks about it, but what makes Pump unique is his ability to relate that commonplace idea to the elderly in a hilarious and unexpected way. He’s using age as a barometer by which to measure his own life; the elderly representing an extreme through which he can cover these well-trodden topics.
It’s quite the signature flair for a 17-year-old to brandish, but perhaps through these lines he’s revealing his own obsession with death and mortality. Maybe these grandparent-based lyrics are allowing us a brief peek into the inner machinations of Lil Pump’s mind and we are learning what troubles him on a deep, cosmic, existential level. The philosophical reaper that keeps him up at night. These lines act as an illumination of the human experience as told through the grounded eyes of one man who yells “ESKETIT” like it’s his Pokemon name. What follows is a comprehensive list of every time Little Pump has rapped about senior citizens. You are welcome.
My lean cost more than your rent, ooh (it do)
Your momma still live in a tent, yuh (brr)
Still slangin’ dope in the 'jects, huh? (yeah)
For the sake of completeness, we’ll begin with lyrics that started it all. The quote above comprises exactly 25% of the sole verse found on Lil Pump’s breakout hit “Gucci Gang.” In it we find Pump surveying his surroundings, living situation, and pattern of systematic drug use over a bassy beat and twinkling piano line.
First, we get the worrying comparison between the upkeep of his own opiate addiction to monthly rent, then the (uncalled for) implication that the listener’s mother is homeless, and the final cherry on top: the fact that Pump spends quality time popping pills with his grandmother. While the specifics remain vague here, it’s implied that he’s taking drugs recreationally while she is taking them for health reasons.
This being one of Pump’s numerous references to the elderly, the topic’s pervasiveness now leads me to believe that this is both a genuine lyric, as well as a thinly-veiled cry for help. As distressing as the lyric may be, at least he’s spending some quality time with his elders before they pass. Even if it’s a drug-fueled haze, I hope that both parties treasure their remaining time together and cherish each other’s company.
I got Fiji on my neck
I got Gucci on my chest
Off a Xan like Ron Artes
In this one-off Lil Pump loosie, Young Gazzy uses the artesian water brand as a descriptor for both his jewelry and his sex life. Following a similar structure as “Gucci Gang,” this track features a brief intro, and one verse sandwiched between two short choruses. Clocking in at a mere 88-seconds, “Fiji” is a striking minimalist creation that embraces reductionism and revels in ambiguity.
Within the world of hip-hop, “Water” can actually mean many things. From sex to swagger, the use of ‘water’ in-song is generally something you have to pick up from context clues, and this track is no different. In “Fiji” Pump walks a beautifully-ambiguous line between these typical definitions of earthly possessions and literal water, turning the brand’s name into a primal chant of “I pour Fiji on her neck.”
After a brief water-laced refrain, Pump proceeds into the meat of the song: a 45-word verse that discusses his public persona and ticks all of the seemingly-mandatory drug-based name-drops. He has jewelry on his neck, a Gucci logo tattooed on his chest, and most importantly the incongruous mention of his grandmother casually enjoying some hitech (aka Lean).
Perhaps elaborating on the lines of “Gucci Gang,” this lyric implies that maybe he and his grandmother both enjoy drugs on the same recreational level. Later on in the song he continues:
Slice your auntie in the neck
Lil Pump disrespect
Run up on you with that 40
Grab your grandma by the neck
After the verses earlier drug revelry, Pump seems to “set his sights” on the listener, attacking us via multiple familial ties. In a single moment of clarity he utters “Lil Pump disrespect” as if he knows what he’s doing is morally reprehensible, but remains out of his control. A haunting sentiment to say the least.
His hunger is insatiable, and your grandmother is his target. Violence is the only thing he understands, and your grandmother is the only thing he can grasp onto, both physically and metaphorically. And then, just as suddenly as the attack unfolded, the song fades into nothing, leaving the listener in the bloody aftermath.
Whippin’ up dope in the trap spot (what)
Sellin’ cocaine to your grandma (yuh)
Whippin’ up dope in the trap spot (yuh, yuh)
Sellin’ cocaine to your grandma (yuh, yuh, yuh, yuh)
In this early-album cut Lil Pump and fellow Florida rapper SmokePurpp trade verses for a compact and chaotic 2-minutes. In Garcia’s second verse he exerts himself enough to present one specific instance of creating and selling drugs over a series of escalating “yuh’s.”
In this simplistic portrayal of Pump’s supply chain, he gives his process away to the listener:
Whip up an indeterminate amount of “dope” within the “trap”
Proceed to sell that cocaine to the listener’s grandmother
Perhaps connected to the seemingly-uncalled-for violence depicted on “Fiji,” these lines seem to explain how Pump has obtained his wealth. I imagine that the elderly are comparatively easy-going when it comes to the purchase and intake of drugs, so it’s presumably easy money for Pump and a decent enough business model. Backed up by voracious twitter claims that echo the song’s lyrics, Pump has given us no reason to doubt him or his business acumen when it comes to selling the white stuff to the Greatest Generation.
My loud pack smell like fish tank
My backwoods filled with dumb stank
I can’t fuck with you, cause I know all you ni**as stains
My grandma selling loud pack and she selling cocaine
She run up on your block and she’ll shoot you in the fuckin’ brain
With “Had” it seems that there’s a new wrinkle to Pump’s drug operation as it’s revealed that he’s running a family business by employing his grandmother as a key player.
Depicting his bubbe as savage and violent as himself, this example could possibly explain Pump’s own outwardly-destructive actions as a learned behavior. In portraying a systematic issue within our society, this line directly tackles how family can fail us, or lead us to repeat the same mistakes as those that came before us. It’s a tortured and agonized call for help as Pump removes himself enough to realize the trauma that he has indirectly absorbed and the conditions that he has had no choice but to grow up in.
This all said, it’s still nice that people like Pump’s grandmother can find purpose in the fast-paced working world and be driven by the fulfillment of a hard days work. The fact that she’s willing to kill on top of the drug dealing means that she’s committed to the cause, and is likely quite experienced, even in her old age. At the very least, Pump must come from good genes!
I got junkies at the door
I could serve you 2 for 4
I could serve you couple Xans
I could feed your bitch some coke
Yeah my Uzi automatic
On this mid-album cut, we see yet another allusion to the violence that Pump has inflicted upon the listener’s grandmother specifically. Perhaps wielded by Pump himself, or maybe even his grandmother (as we saw in “Had), it appears as if the drug dealing illustrated on “Smoke my Dope” has gone sideways for one reason or another, and Pump has been forced to resort to violence.
This line is actually one of the multiple familial references within this verse, the others being father, daughter, and aunt, so while this reference fits squarely in the bounds of the topic at hand, there’s no getting around the persistently-elderly angle that Pump takes.
This is yet another line later echoed in a Tweet by Pump, either lending further credence to his unfeeling savagery, or (perhaps) his commitment to our society’s collective physical fitness by inspiring the elderly to do advanced-level gymnastics.
None of this was good. While Pump’s initial references to the elderly seemed to be a twisted form of mutual enjoyment, things quickly devolved into selling drugs, and eventually inflicting violence directly on the listener’s grandmother.
This analysis is absolute stupidity, but I find it too amusing that a 17-year-old who has so few songs officially released has referenced the elderly half a dozen times throughout the history of his recorded work. The way I see it, there are a few explanations for this lyrical ouroboros:
It’s a creative crutch.
Lil Pump has that little to say that he keeps defaulting to “grandma.”
Deep-seated familial trauma in his own past that Pump may or may not be cognizant of.
Pump thinks that the savagery of his grandma implies, dictates, and directly translates to his own.
By “attacking” the listener and showing disregard for their loved ones, his devil-may-care attitude is preemptively deflecting any criticism they may have of Pump or his music.
Lil Pump truly does fear the uncertainty of death and projects that concern through the multiple references to the elderly in his music.
It very well could be all or any combination of all of these, but in any case, I feel it’s safe to say that this qualifies as an unhealthy fixation. Whether it’s a profound fear of death, a thinly-veiled attempt to address his own mortality, or irreconcilable childhood trauma, I genuinely hope that Gazzy Garcia can get the help he needs to get over this mental block.
He’s still got many years ahead of him, and a full life to live. If he wants to make it to the status of “Grandpa Pump” he’ll have to overcome this irrational fear and tackle his issues head-on, or else they will continue to emerge in unhealthy ways.
Here’s to you Mr. Pump, I hope you get the help you need and deserve.
I’m sorry for writing this.
The face of regret.
One of the biggest musical revelations of my life, like many things, came from a podcast. It wasn’t a cool song or the discovery of a new genre, but a conceptual framework that changed how I viewed the entirety of music.
The statement, born of a drunken video game discussion, found one of the hosts outlining his definition of pop music. His parameters weren’t based on the artist’s popularity or the sound of their music, but rather something that you could “hear once and enjoy.” He went on to elaborate “I didn’t even like most of my favorite albums the first time I heard them.”
I’m paraphrasing massively here (because I don’t remember the exact quote, episode, or even year), but this general notion is something that has stuck with me for almost a decade. It’s a bit of a roundabout way to define the pop genre (which I still love and appreciate), but it’s also a slightly snobby framework that looks down on an entire genre while simultaneously glorifying your own taste. So sure it’s problematic, but I also don’t think it’s entirely wrong. Pop music is scientifically designed to be catchy, appealing, and broad, that’s inherent in its DNA.
Still, the more I thought about this framing device, the more I found it to be true. I especially latched onto the host’s claim that most of his favorite albums were “growers” he found himself enjoying more over time. As I searched through my own music library, I realized that nearly all of my favorite albums were ones I’d listened to dozens of times and seemingly got better with each listen. In fact, most of them were records that I thought nothing of or flat-out dismissed at first but eventually grew to love. Oppositely, there were dozens of other albums (pop or otherwise) that I’d listened to once and forgotten almost instantly.
So this theory seemed to hold water, and it’s a filter that I’ve used to view music through for nearly a decade at this point. Recently the idea of albums being “growers” brought up online and spark quite a bit of debate. There’s one side that subscribes to the “grower versus shower” mentality, and another that views this behavior as simply subjecting yourself to an album over and over again until you like it. As with most everything, there’s truth to both sides and neither is truly “right.” So I’ve spent some time mulling over this framework, asking people about it, and gathering opinions from both sides of the fence. I’ve uncovered ten different inter-connected elements that are at play within the “grower” concept. I’m going to outline each point below along with personal examples in hopes that I arrive at some sort of conclusion or thesis statement in the process.
One of the biggest arguments in favor of returning to albums and the concept of “growers” is the idea that some genres/bands/records are so musically complex that they encourage it. Whether it’s lyrical, instrumental, or contextual, sometimes there is so much going on in a record that it’s impossible to take everything in on first listen. Take something like Pet Sounds or The Seer where at any given moment there are dozens of individual components all fighting for the same sonic landscape. You can listen to Pet Sounds once and “get it,” but repeated listens reward the listener by allowing them to slowly discover everything at play in these carefully-layered songs. It’s like crossing things off a list; once you know the lyrics you can pay less attention to the vocalist and focus on a different element of the arrangement. You can keep revising an album and delve deeper each time until you have the full picture; one that was impossible to see the first time you listened.
Meanwhile, pop music is almost always internationally bare. By remaining surface-level (both lyrically and instrumentally) pop songs are easier to grasp at first pass. This allows pop artists to more easily fulfill their primary purpose by transporting a single supremely-catchy hook or chorus into the listener’s brain. As a result, the pop genre as a whole actively avoids things that could “distract” the listener because those experimentations and imperfections are often things that risk detracting from the core message that’s being delivered. That’s not to say pop songs don’t require skill to make, just that they avoid anything too “out there.”
Take Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”: it’s a song that I adore, but I’ll be the first to admit there’s almost no substance to it. The main elements at play here are Katy Perry’s voice and a warm radiating synth line. There’s a guitar and bass laid underneath these primary elements along with a handful of ad-libs from both Mrs. Perry and Mr. Dogg, but those the closest thing to musical depth that this track offers. Much like the music video, “California Gurls” is a synthetic and sugary-sweet pop song that exists to convey a single straight-forward message. As a result, you have a song that’s catchy due in large part to the fact that it’s presented in a barebones way. By being lyrically or musically complex you risk immediacy, so you must present your song in a pointed way so as to embrace catchiness.
So obviously sheer mass and complexity are major factors in this debate. Some of my favorite records are indeed sprawling epics that I’ve essentially bonded with over the course of several years. Records that have drawn me back in time and time again and improved my impression of them in the process by developing a unique and ever-changing relationship with me. A musically-dense record will always be more rewarding to return to because it rewards repeated listens and allows the listener to pick up on something new each time. Meanwhile, a pop track may keep a listener coming back for the earworm factor, but won’t necessarily be as deeply rewarding the same way that a “complex” album would be.
Sometimes there’s a mysterious, unknowable X-factor that keeps you coming back to a record. Even an album you don’t like can draw you back, if only to pin down its ephemeral magnetism. This has happened to me in 2012 with Carly Rae Jepsen’s megahit “Call Me Maybe” and (after dozens of listens) I’ve since pinned it down to her unique delivery of the goosebump-inducing line “and.. all the other boys.” Early on in his excellent 150-page CRJ-based manifesto, Max Landis does an excellent job of breaking down the song’s undercurrent of distress and subversion, but the point is in 2012 we, as a society, were collectively drawn to this song for some reason.
Sometimes it’s as simple as a weird vocal quirk, other times it’s an attention-grabbing instrumental moment, or a riff that gets stuck in your brain like jelly. In any case, these unique moments aren’t limited to one genre and their ear-worminess plays a huge part in why we return to a piece of art.
I’ve done this with countless songs. Sometimes I’ll find myself listening to an entire album just to experience a single moment in full effect. Sure I can listen to Hamilton’s “Take a Break” in isolation, but it’s only when I listen to the entire play from the beginning that I fully tear up at the song’s implication within the larger narrative. Moments in the song like hearing Phillip’s rap, coupled with Alexander’s growing distance from his family, and dark multi-leveled foreshadowing, are all made more impactful when the piece is taken in as a whole. We don’t get to pick the little things that draw us in, but this search is one of the most rewarding aspects of music appreciation and discovery.
In a third case (I’ll fully-delve into deeper this December), up until last year, Sufjan Stevens has been an artist that I wanted get into. Thanks to a serendipitous iTunes DJ Shuffle back in high school, I became infatuated with exactly three of his songs and I spent literal years listening only to these three tracks until I was ready to explore the rest of his discography.
The Carly Rae Jepsen example proves that there’s still room for these moments in a pop song. Experimentation and subverting expectations can reward the artist in unexpected ways, but if there’s not something there to make the listener curious enough, then it’s unlikely that they’re going to go back and try to figure it out on their own.
Like it or not, critics play a role in dictating taste within culture. I suppose it’s less like “dictating” and more like influencing, but I think we’ve all been swayed by reviews at one time or another. Whether it was being convinced to stay away from a bad movie, or giving a record a spin based purely on universal acclaim, critics have an undeniable impact on our cultural landscape.
I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. At worst it will make you more hesitant, and at best you might give something a chance that you never would have known about otherwise. I did this with Kanye West in 2010 following the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, after its perfect Pitchfork score and placement as their best album of 2010. Aside from Eminem, I’d never really listened to any hip-hop in earnest, but this level of praise couldn’t be a coincidence, right? I downloaded the album, gave it a reluctant spin, and came away from it mostly underwhelmed.
As a side note (before I get called out) it’s worth noting that I didn’t have any context for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at the time. I had no idea about Kanye’s background, or what the album represented within his career. I also had no real appreciation for the record’s layers upon first listen (circling back to Point #1) but I went on to rediscover and genuinely love it in 2016. The point is I picked up this album solely because of critics.
Continuing the Kanye West anecdotes; I’ve already written about how the internet’s reaction to the release of Yeezus spurred me to give the album a shot. I still didn’t get him. For whatever reason, I gave the album another listen a couple months after its release and suddenly everything clicked. I loved Yeezus and soon found myself venturing back through Kanye’s discography from the beginning. I’d like to think that I came to love Kanye of my own free will, but the reason I gave him a chance in the first place (and the second place) is because of other people. Whether it was a “reputable” journalistic source like Pitchfork, or simply witnessing the unbridled joy of hip-hop heads on an internet message board, I could tell I was missing out on something, and that kept me open.
After “discovering” Kanye West in 2013, he was the sole hip-hop artist I listened to for some time. I would casually browse forums and keep up on large-scale movements within the genre, but it wasn’t until years later that I would find myself delving deeper into the contemporary rap scene. By the end of 2015, I was listening to everything from leaned-out trap, conceptual double albums, absurdist mixtapes and even Drake. Soon I found myself listening to goofier (then) lesser-known acts like Lil Yachty, Lil Uzi Vert, and Desiigner. I can guarantee you that I never would have latched onto any of those guys if it wasn’t for Kanye breaking down my personal barriers and dismantling my hip-hop-related hangups. It took time for me to go from actively disliking hip-hop to embracing it wholeheartedly, and that’s a journey that can only happen over time.
While your personal journey within individual genres matters, there are also things like general knowledge and maturity at play too. Once I got out of that shitty high school ‘everything that’s popular sucks’ punk mentality I opened myself up to dozens of new artistic directions. I gained a new appreciation for things I’d previously despised, and I began to understand why things like MBDTF were important. It’s a combination of open-mindedness and cultural awareness that comes with age, and one that I hope never slows as I get older.
Maturity is an uncontrollable factor that’s hard to pin down, and impossible to quantify. I’ve experienced “musical maturity” as recently as this year with the Fleet Foxes. They were a member of my generation’s pivotal “indie folk movement” and I consider them one of my gateway groups, but despite their importance, I’d never really considered myself a fan. And it’s not for lack of trying, I own all their albums, gave them multiple chances throughout high school and college, but I had always found them interminably boring. I didn’t see what other people saw in them… until this year. With the multi-month build-up to 2017’s Crack-Up, I found myself giving into the hype and giving their older albums another shot for the first time in years. To my surprise, after a handful of half-passive listens I really liked everything I heard. All three of their previous releases grew on me over the course of several weeks, and I became a fan like that. I can still see why I found them boring in high school, but I think the real reason is a lack of maturity. I now have the patience and appreciation for the kind of careful, measured indie folk they’re making, and that openness has rewarded me with hours of enjoyment.
Circling back to Point #1: it’s often hard to fully grasp an album on first listen, and sometimes a record’s complexity doesn’t allow it to truly grab ahold of you until years down the line. In a way, this is also a point against pop music since so much of it “of the moment” it tends to age worse. It’s a genre that’s by nature the most tapped into pop culture, and as a result, it’s harder to go back and enjoy older songs when A) you’ve heard them thousands of times, and B) there’s more recent stuff that’s more tapped into the current sound. It feels like there’s more of an “expiration” to pop music which means it’s not necessarily as rewarding to venture back to.
A semi-recent extra-musical factor at play in this discussion has to do with how we consume music. Up until about a decade ago the process was 1) hear a song 2) go buy the album at the store 3) listen to the album. With the rise of iTunes, YouTube, and more recently, digital streaming platforms the entire process has become flattened. A song can come to mind, and we can pull it up on our phones within 30 seconds. You can hear a song at a bar, Shazam it, and add it to your digital collection within an instant.
As a result of this, albums as a concept have been diminished in both stature and importance. You have people like Chance The Rapper releasing retail mixtapes, Kanye West updating his albums after release, and Drake releasing commercial playlists. But on top of these (somewhat arbitrary) distinctions, there’s a layer of increasingly-pervasive accessibility. You can hear about an artist and have their discography at your fingertips within seconds. You can read about a new release and be streaming it by the time that it takes you to finish this sentence. That freedom has forever changed how we consume music. Comparing this on-demand accessibility with the “old ways” of going to a store and buying a physical record, it’s easy to see how the times have changed.
As a result of this shift, people are less committed to albums. If you don’t like an album you can play another just as quickly. We can jump ship with no loss at all. We’re not connected to the record, so it’s easy to abandon.
Funny enough, with the rise of streaming we’ve seen a near-direct correlation with the rise in the popularity of vinyl as it’s on track to be a billion-dollar industry this year. These are people that want and miss that physical connection with their records. There’s an undeniable difference between listening to an album on Spotify and hearing it come out of your vinyl player at home. “Warmth” and all that bullshit aside, this is an example of the format influencing our listening habits. If you’re using Spotify and don’t like an album, you can easily stop streaming and jump to any of the millions of readily-available alternatives.
Most importantly, when streaming, there’s also no reason to “justify” your purchase because we haven’t dropped $20+ on a piece of physical media. If you bought a record and didn’t like you’d damn sure try to listen to it more than a few times because you invested in it, goddammit!
There’s also a pattern of familiarity at play too. Every time you open Spotify you’re given the choice between something new and something that you already like. If you gave an album a shot and didn’t like it, you’re now given a choice between that and something you know you already like. So why would you ever opt for the thing you don’t like?
Reddit user nohoperadio explains this phenomenon and the wealth of choices that we have in the modern music landscape:
“Those pragmatic constraints on our listening habits don’t exist, and we have to make conscious decisions about how much time we want to devote to exploring new stuff and how much time we want to devote to digging deeper into stuff we’ve already heard, but every time you do one of those you have this anxious feeling like maybe you should be doing the other. It’s only in this new context that it’s possible to worry that you’re listening wrong.”
It really is an interesting psychological door that’s opened with our newfound technological access, and analysis paralysis aside, it explains why some songs draw listeners back by the millions. Drake’s “One Dance” is the most streamed Spotify song of all time with 1,330 million plays. It’s a good song, but not that good. It’s an example of a song achieving a balance of accessibility and pervasiveness until it becomes habitual and self-reinforcing. That’s something that only could have happened in the streaming world.
Up until now, we’ve mostly been talking about this framework within the context of “new” albums, but what about when you already have context? What about a non-accessible release from your favorite artist?
This has happened to me with many albums over the years. I wrote a 7,000-word four-part essay that was mostly just me grappling with my own disappointment of Drake and Travis Scott’s 2016 releases. For the sake of talking about something new: The Wonder Years are one of my all-time favorite bands. I’ve written a loving review of their second album, and I plan on doing the same thing with their third and fourth releases as well. After a trio of impactful, nearly-perfect pop-punk records, the band released their fifth album No Closer to Heaven on September 4th of 2015. While it’s not an “inaccessible” record, it’s easily my least favorite from the band and a far cry from their previous heart-on-sleeve realist pop-punk. It took me months of listening to the album to fully-realize my disappointment, and even longer to figure out why. I’m still not sure I can accurately explain why Heaven doesn’t gel with me, but that’s not what this post is for. The point is I’ve subjected myself to this album dozens of times racking up nearly 700 plays at the time of this writing. In fact, it’s my 19th most-listened-to album of all time according to Last.fm, and that’s for an album that I don’t even enjoy that much!
I was driven to this album partly by my frustration and confusion, but also my love of the band. I’ve enjoyed literally every other piece of music they’ve ever recorded, what made this one so different? I guess 700 plays isn’t something you’d afford even the most promising album, but this is an example of the listener’s history influencing their own behavior and desire to love an album. It’s trying to make an album into a “grower” when it may never be one in the first place. That leads nicely into #7…
The most common argument I see against the concept of albums as growers is the idea that the listener is “forcing it.” This is problematic mainly because everyone’s definition of “forcing it” is different. Some people have a specific number in mind ‘if you listen to an album three times and don’t like it, then you’re forcing yourself’ others base it on feeling ‘if you’re despising every second of an album, then just turn it off. Otherwise, you’re forcing it.’
The idea is you force yourself to like something out of pure habit or by subjecting yourself to it over and over again, eventually becoming hostage to something that you didn’t really like in the first place. To me, this is the meatiest discussion point here because it’s such a multifaceted issue. I’ve already discussed this concept within the context of Drake’s Views, but to briefly recap: I loved his 2015 album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, and he had a killer summer with What A Time To Be Alive and a high-profile rap beef. I was beyond hyped for his next release in 2016 but came out of my first listen incredibly disappointed. Over time I grew to like most of the songs, presumably from sheer repetition, but I still recognize it as an album that isn’t good on an objective artistic level. So is this forcing it? I never hated any of those listens, I just grew to like the album more after time had passed, but I still don’t think it’s good.
I’ve done the same thing this year with Father John Misty’s Pure Comedy. After an impeccable 2015 release and a metamonths-longinterview-ladenlead-up to the record’s release in April I, again, emerged from my first listen disappointed. I have come to enjoy the album more over time, especially after giving myself a break from it and seeing some of the songs performed live. So maybe these two cases just have to do with unrealistic built-up expectations and already being a fan (Point #6) but no matter how you look at it, I wanted to like these albums and kept subjecting myself to them.
At any rate, the biggest flaw with this argument is that everyone’s definition of “forcing it” is different. Unless someone’s making you listen at gunpoint, there is no force. You can stop at any time and you shouldn’t feel pressure to like something just because. But I fully recognize someone could see my listening history with Drake’s Views and say “my god, why would you listen to an album you’re lukewarm on that many times? That’s torture!” but I guess what’s torture for some is simply passive listening for another.
For a more scientific perspective, this youtube video details some of the crazy behind-the-scenes factors at play in making pop music particularly pervasive. Everything from the radio to Urban Outfitters to fucking memes spread music and have the ability to make something exponentially more popular. This circles back to “forcing it” because you may have no power in these cases. God knows after years of the same retail job I grew to hate some songs that were otherwise great just from sheer repetition. It would make sense that this then becomes “forcing it” since you have no power, but sometimes even that can circle back to genuine love if you build enough positive associations over time. I may not like “Hotline Bling” as a song, but god knows I’ve upvoted enough memes featuring the turtleneck-clad Drake that I enjoy something about it.
Furthering the pseudo-scientifical discussion of articles I that don’t have the intelligence to write of research: this blog (which cites this study) discusses “addiction economy” and explores the profiles of “explorers” and “exploiters.” The primary difference between the two groups is their propensity for either delayed or instant gratification. The study explores the idea that technology has accelerated this process which (in a music context) circles back to Point #5 of streaming’s role in our listening habits. Why bother trying to listen to something “difficult” or “weird” when you can have the instant hit of euphoria that comes with a bouncy non-offensive Taylor Swift song?
I really think this one comes down to what you’re in the mood for. If you have the attention, time, and necessary background, why not explore something rich that you may love? But if you just want something quick and easy, just put on the Spotify Top 50 for some background noise. It becomes the musical equivalent of a hearty homecooked meal versus a big, greasy fast food burger. One may be objectively “better,” but it’s not always right for the situation.
Another factor that exists outside of the music itself is the listener’s initial approach. If you go into any art with a preconceived notion you’ll either be surprised by the outcome or have your beliefs confirmed. If you go to a shitty movie expecting it to be shitty, you’ll emerge thinking “well duh.” The inverse of this could also be true (a shitty movie turning out good, etc.), but the real discussion here has to do with the viewer’s initial expectation.
I do think with music it’s rare that you’ll do a complete 180 in either direction. The most likely case of a “grower” is generally a record that you go into not knowing anything about and then some unknown factor (Point #2) keeps bringing you back. It’s also true that you could dislike and album and over time come out liking it (as I did with Views). And while it’s a rare occurrence, I suppose an album could also be a “shrinker” that you love on first listen, but grow to dislike more and more.
Circling back to genres, I think pop music tends to be a shrinker more often than not. It’s something that’s (by nature) immediately accessible but slowly drives you mad with each repeated listen like a screw tightening into your skull. We’ve all been there (especially anyone with a retail job) but I can’t think of a single occurrence where I’ve done that to myself of my own free will. Oppositely, I know people that only interact with music by listening to songs until they’re absolutely sick of them. That’s not how I prefer to interact with art mainly because I feel like there’s only so much time in the day and so many other things to listen to, why force that upon yourself?
I think that the listener’s starting point is a huge concept. Reddit user InSearchOfGoodPun outlines his thoughts on the initial approach and the impact of time on your listening experience:
“My personal opinion is that if you listen to almost anything enough times with a receptive attitude, you will start to appreciate it. It might not become one of your favorites, but you’ll like it for what it is. In any case, at the end of the day, you like what you like.”
The key phrase here is receptive attitude. If you aren’t listening with a receptive attitude, then you’re forcing yourself. Then you’re just making it unenjoyable no matter what. I think this is one of the biggest points in this whole write-up and a key indicator of who you are as a consumer of art. It’s all about being receptive regardless of your starting point.
Jumping back to Kanye: it was a long and winding road filled with lots of resistance, but despite my own hangups, I now consider myself a hip-hop head. I listen to the genre constantly, I’m up on the “newcomers” and I find myself devoting an absurd amount of time to researching the realm’s happenings each day. I wouldn’t have cared that much without Kanye, and I wouldn’t have discovered half of the shit that I currently love without Yeezus breaking those barriers down.
I’ve spent this entire time talking about albums as “growers,” but it’s also possible that this concept could be applied to entire genres too. I mean, after all, a genre really is like a language you have to learn, and I was fortunate enough to have Kanye as my teacher. Through his discography, I learned about the genre’s history, who its major players are, as well as the language, cadence, and frameworks that it uses. In another sense, it’s almost like “building up your tolerance” to something you previously didn’t understand or couldn’t grasp.
I’ve detailed my own history wading into genres like hip-hop and indie, but it makes sense that this personal context would impact how we would interact with albums through the broader umbrella of their genre. I wouldn’t have understood hip-hop if I jumped straight to Migos. Everyone has a starting point for their musical taste, and it spreads outward from there. Pop music is an easily-accessible taste, but most other genres take a little bit more of an adjustment to get used to. Certain albums or genres are just objectively less-accessible, and harder to get into as a result.
In fact, it could easily be argued that exploring a genre could be the biggest decider on whether an album is a “grower” or not. Contextualizing a record within a larger space can help the listener and understanding it better and appreciate it more. Listening to one album multiple times might be the exact opposite of the correct approach, because while the listener may not like it, they may find something musically adjacent that’s more up their alley.
For the sake of furthering the discussion outside of albums, it’s also worth zooming down to a micro level to look at individual songs. While I tend to listen (and think of things) in terms of albums, it’s undeniable that songs are the main component at play. In fact, a single song is probably the reason for you checking an album out in the first place. Thinking “hey I like this one thing, maybe I should check out the rest” is how I’ve discovered most of the music in my library.
But this same framework of “growers” can easily be applied to songs too. When listening to an album the first time, occasionally only individual songs will jump out at you right away. I love Lost in the Dream by The War on Drugs, but for the first dozen or so times I played the album, the only song I could remember was the opener “Under the Pressure.” That song had a memorable chorus, a catchy riff, and a driving rhythm. It alone is the sole reason I kept coming back to the record, but each time I put “Under the Pressure” on I’d find myself thinking ‘ah, I’ll just let the rest of the album play.’ Eventually, the rest of the record revealed itself to me and individual songs emerged from what was once an amorphous blob of sun-drenched heartland rock.
I did the exact same thing with Young Thug’s breakthrough 2015 album Barter 6. I’d already had a passing interest in Thug thanks to his previous collaborative efforts with Rich Homie Quan, so I gave Barter a semi-attentive spin and left underwhelmed. After a glowing Pitchfork review (Point #3) I gave the album another shot but couldn’t find myself getting past the first track. In a good way. I kept relistening to the album opener “Constantly Hating” and every time I tried to move onto something else, this transfixing opener drew me back in. Soon Barter 6’s second track grabbed me just as hard. Then the third. Then a single. Then a late album track. Eventually, I was listening to the whole thing front-to-back and enjoying every song. Individual songs are a viable path to an album becoming a grower, and while I don’t like digesting albums piecemeal, sometimes that approach can allow an album to creep up on you over time.
At the end of the day, there’s a difference between feeling lukewarm on an album then giving it a few more chances and hating an album but feeling like you’re obligated to listen because you “should” like it. Usually, there’s some redeeming quality that brings you back, God knows there’s plenty of albums I’ve heard once then forgotten forever.
Patience is key, and that receptivity can lead to an album becoming better over time. With pop music, I feel like there’s an individual tipping point that everyone hits where you go from fully-embracing a song to actively combatting it. We don’t all have the time or patience to devote ourselves to “difficult” albums, so sometimes the road less traveled is less appealing.
After writing all of this, I’ve come to the conclusion that my initial theory is a flawed. Like many things, it’s not universal. There’s no one “right” answer or perfect framework that applies to all of music. This theory still works on a case-by-case basis, but there’s nuance to every genre, artist, and song, and this broadness makes it hard to view music through such a broad lens.
If anything, a big takeaway is that there’s no one “better” genre, just different fits for different people. With all these possible elements at play, it’s easier to see how someone could gravitate towards one easier genre meanwhile a different person has cut their teeth in a different genre and has a more developed understanding of its intricacies.
And whether you look at it as “a grower” that gets better over time or a “shrinker” that driver you more insane with each listen, there is a point at which you are “forcing it” but (again) that varies from person to person. The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.
The truly compelling part of music is the way that you interact with it. What you bring to the experience and how you interpret the artist’s work. Whether it’s going track-by-track or listening front-to-back, or listening to one single song until you’re sick of it. Music is special because of what we project onto it. The memories we make around it.
It’s obviously incorrect to view all pop music as shallow, just as it’s incorrect to view all rock as deep, or all rap as thuggish. Everything is on a spectrum, and your perspective within the genre, the artist, your life, and the world all come into play when listening.
I don’t think there’s any defined “conclusion” to arrive at, just many different elements to keep track of. These frameworks can help explain why I like A while you like B. The absolute most important thing to take away from this is to keep an open and receptive mind.
I’ve recently come to the realization that my dream job, the one thing I really want to do, is to share things that I love with other people. To spread art, joy, and love in hopes that someone else is affected by these things the same way that I am.
That requires an objective mind, but you still won’t ever like everything. And that’s okay. You shouldn’t have to.
I think sharing things and spreading love is productive for the world.
It’s the most positive impact we can make on the world around us.
It’s spreading beauty.
Both being able to see why someone likes something and being able to share your own experience. It’s the one universal. The human experience. We all have unique perspectives, thoughts, and lives. Sometimes sharing is the only thing we can do.
Art is a bonding agent.
What we add to it is the special part.
Remain open.
Share your love.
For the past several weeks I’ve been working on a monster write-up, and I keep hitting walls. I don’t know if it’s writer’s block or sheer laziness, but as an exercise to overcome my wordlessness I’m going to unleash a dumbass idea that I’ve had in my head for months.
This is a post about numbers. Counting specifically. Not like time signatures or recursive rhyme schemes, or anything complicated. Nope, I’m talking about Sesame Street-level counting upward by single numbers.
This is a phenomenon that I first noticed earlier this year in the explosive lead-up to Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. After spotting this example, I quickly noticed other instances and it began to feel like a genre-wide happening. It became a weird trend that I’ve spotted in multiple songs this year alone. There are probably even more instances that I haven’t heard yet, and at the risk of drilling down to levels of abjectly-obscure hyper-specificity, here it is: the definitive list of 2017 hip-hop songs that employ counting as a rhyme scheme.
Migos “Slippery”
In this Gucci Mane-featuring track, the Atlanta trap trio takes turns discussing women, drugs, and the liquidity of their jewelry. After the song’s first hook, Quavo, the group’s resident crooner, jumps into his verse headfirst. Any verse that starts with an earnest delivery of the word “tater tot” deserves recognition in the first place. After a cursory mention of haters followed by a crocodilian turn of phrase, Quavo circles around to the song’s primary focal point and describes his jewelry:
While not completely out of place, the transition from his bejeweled timekeeper to a relatively mundane time of day seems a little jarring. The next line reveals the mention of 10pm to actually be a setup for a series of time-related bars that would have sounded at home coming out of the Count’s mouth:
Ridin’ round, geeked up, damn, think it’s three o'clock (three)
It’s a pretty bizarre conceit, but I guess it just serves to reinforce the fact that Quavo is riding around “geeked up” at presumably any hour of the day. It’s still a line that makes me smile after dozens of listens, and if anyone can sell a song in which you literally just list off the different times of the day, it’s Quavo. His delivery on these lines are fittingly icy, and they transfer their distorted sense of time to the listener simply by proximity.
Kendrick Lamar “The Heart Part 4”
The lead-up to Kendrick Lamar’s highly-anticipated fourth studio album was an exciting time. While we’d only experienced swirling rumors up until March, the internet’s hype hit an all-time high when Lamar dropped the surprise one-off “The Heart Part 4.” There’s a lot to digest in this song from possible disses to announcing his own arrival, but most importantly, the track served as an announcement, a message the Kendrick Lamar was officially back.
Midway through the song, there’s a beat switch, and Kendrick starts spitting a particularly venomous set of bars over an interpolated Beanie Sigel beat and a 24-Carat Black sample. He’d go on to rap over the exact same beat on the album cut “FEAR.” but for the time being, it was simply an impactful verse with some of the most braggadocious lyrics we’ve ever heard from Mr. Duckworth.
Early on in this second verse, Kendrick spits a handful of lines that only he could get away with:
Yellin’, “One, two, three, four, five
I am the greatest rapper alive!”
I say only Kendrick can get away with this because it would have sounded like a lie coming from nearly anyone else. Seeing the lines written out, they still look like objectively bad lyrics, but Kendrick gets a pass because of who he is and what this song represents.
The song’s genius annotation is a hyper-linked clusterfuck of references hoping to connect all the things that Kendrick could be calling out. It’s possible he could be pulling from any one of these points, but I think this line also works because it’s so infrequent that we hear a rapper say anything like this in 2017. With younger artists releasing music that pulls more from other genres and actively distancing themselves from the “rapper” label, it’s refreshing to see some old-school “I’m the best in the game” boasting from someone who also has the technical skill to back it up.
These lines also call to mind Kendrick’s game-changing “Control” verse in which he named names and brought back an old-school rivalry to hip-hop. This verse achieves that same feeling to a lesser extent but still comes off as a good-natured challenge for his peers to better themselves.
21 Savage “Bank Account”
In this Song of the Summer contender, Atlanta-based rapper and knife enthusiast 21 Savage is pulling double duty both rapping and producing this platinum-selling cut off of his debut studio album. The single, which samples Travis Scott’s excellent “Oh My / Dis Side,” is a dark, moody, ad-lib-riddled account of 21’s wealth and an outline of how far he’s willing to go for the people he loves. When I say “account” I mean that quite literally as the song’s infectious chorus finds a joyless 21 Savage listing off the numbers in his savings account:
I got 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 Ms in my bank account, yeah (on God)
In my bank account, yeah (on God)
In my bank account, yeah (on God)
In my bank account, yeah (on God)
In my bank account, yeah (on God)
In my bank account, yeah (on God)
I got 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 shooters ready to gun you down, yeah (fast)
Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)
Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)
Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)
Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)
Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)
It’s a repetitive series of lines that are both surprisingly catchy and personable within the context of the song. This chorus is just confident enough to serve as a chest-inflating masculine brag, but also goofy enough to be used in memes like this. I’ve already documented all of Issa Album’s food references, but lines like these are the reason that people keep returning to this song (and album) in droves. The chorus of “Bank Account” is a perfect encapsulation of 21 Savage’s appeal by highlighting his trademarked emotionless flow while walking the line between repetition and darkness that he is known for.
Lyrics like the ones above may not look like much on paper, but the point is that they all work. Whether it’s the delivery, a contextual turn of phrase, or a multi-layered double-meaning, these lyrics all work flawlessly within the context of their songs.
In fact, they’re all kinda dog shit when taken out of context like I’ve done here, but this phenomenon of literal counting is just something I noticed and felt compelled to highlight. I guess with enough skill, proficiency, and charisma, people like the artists listed above can make anything sound good.
Here’s to 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 more decades of equally-straightforward lyrics. Honestly, if you can make sequential numbers compelling, then you’re succeeding as an artist.
Words on Music and Life.
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