hooglboss.blogg.se

Odd Future’s resident weed-smoker returns with his first solo effort in a few years, the sequel to 2011’s Under The Influence. Ethereal has one of the deepest catalogs in the Awful crew (if you like ‘Blown’, check out Alexandria’s Rebirth, which he also produced) - and he’s just getting started. ‘Cash’ recruits R&B siren Alexandra and Awful duo AR for a neo-soul throwback ‘Li$t’ sees Ethereal trading verses and taking no prisoners with Archibald Slim. Rather than the delightfully weird beats that animated Cactus Jack, Ethereal has aimed his sampler at classic rap tracks and emerged with smoked-out head nodders that continue the sample-of-a-sample history of hip-hop: ‘World’ samples Nas’ ‘The World Is Yours’, which sampled Ahmad Jamal, T La Rock and Jazzy Jay’, ‘Mask’ samples Three 6 Mafia’s ‘Mask and da Glocc’, which sampled Diana Ross, and so on.īeyond the meta-appreciation of rap history, Blackli$t is a smooth-as-hell listen.

He closes with the bluesy, gospel-tinged ‘O Lord’, offering a tearful plea on behalf of everyone in prison: “They just wanna go home, they just wanna go home, And if they go home, they ain’t gon’ do no more wrong.” Welcome home, Boosie.Īwful Records talent Ethereal just graced these pages in September with his best-of-the-week Cactus Jack, and he’s back already with Blackli$t, a name-your-own-price offering that assesses “the state of affairs in rap music” and the “dirty politics of the music industry.” He keeps up with the next generation on ‘Young Niggas’ with Shy Glizzy, and toys with chilled-out, “40”-ish production on ‘No Juice’ and the syrup-thick ‘The Fall’. There’s a suite of R&B-kissed james, with Boosie telling cautionary tales on ‘Gone Bad’ and getting romantic on ‘Facetime’ (with a restraint that makes this one the polar opposite of Alley Boy’s recent track of the same name). The tapes does a little bit of everything without sounding forced: He does soul-sampling storytelling on ‘Streets On Fire’ and acts as the voice of the streets on ‘Im Wit Ya’ and ‘I Feel Ya’. “Not guilty, the hustler way,” he boasts on the G-funk-nodding intro, before breaking your heart: “Hell of a gift for my momma, your son home momma, Happy Mother’s day.” It’s a pattern that repeats itself throughout a tape that is thoroughly informed by his experiences. His time away has left Boosie raw and angry yet clear-eyed, with a chip on his shoulder and his distinct nasal drawl dripping with acid. Boosie’s features have shown flashes of the brilliance that kept his name in the streets during his long prison stay, and the hour-long mixtape is (thankfully) a cohesive effort without the slapdash feel that plagues similar projects. The Louisiana legend returns after his long, confusing trip through the justice system with the aptly-titled Life After Deathrow.