DAAAAAAAAAAMN PEGGY!
The side of rap that is most exposed to pop has, in my opinion, a chronic need for uncompromising attitudes. For controversial, bold, badass stylistic choices. There is a need for albums that feel comfortable even without pop tracks, and, above all, for albums that are albums.
It's hard to find a rap album that has true coherence as a record, a common atmosphere among the tracks. Very often there are the so-called big hits and then fillers that are needed to flesh out the CD. Younger rappers very rarely engage with the "long" format, and they still prefer to make mixtapes.
Veteran is the album I have preferred so far this year. This rapper is not a newcomer and comes from rather particular backgrounds, he is a black journalist, a decorated soldier, extremely leftist. An anomaly. His peculiar persona is hidden behind an alter-ego, a figure, violent and controversial. Maybe I liked the album precisely because it is uncompromising both musically and in terms of content and positions. A track like Rock N Roll is Dead is emblematic, a sonic magma of violated samples, a minute-long introduction, dedicated entirely to the decomposition of debris that will then become a sadistic beat for a waterfall of rhyming anger, which then gives way to a most unexpected melodic opening in the last verse, a true grace, the album doesn't hold back, deviations like these are frequent. The text is an attack on the U.S. alt right, skillfully built precisely on those things that make the new American right-wing rabid (I fuck your baby sitter/ I hit her/ I took her to a show, man what's the issue/ I split her/ This groovy nigga bangin' on your sister, etc.). The album rests on this kind of approach, in its own particular, pop way. Experimental rap has never been so easy and pleasant without losing an ounce of its power and, excuse me, uncompromising nature. Just consider the random beatings from Whole Foods (Pitchfork told me to never be abusive/ Unless I'm moving units) or from Baby I’m Bleeding.
Sorry, you can’t help but quote these bars, among the funniest of the year ("Fuck a Johnny Rotten, I want Lil B!", from a track called I Cannot Fucking Wait Until Morrissey Dies; "I put the Judge in seat, I send that bitch to the bing/ I heard she pray to Allah, nah bitch you praying to me", from 1488). One of the best rap albums of the year is free on Bandcamp, in the description. Listen, listen, listen.
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