Jeezy is the southern equivalent of Raekwon: his raps are gritty enough to make everything he does unquestionably street music, but underneath the grime is a tremendous ear for music and a constant creative vision for how he fits in it. The only difference between Jeezy and every other rapper with the same gimmick is that he’s just better than the rest of them. And his gimmick of the straight-from-the-streets hustler who’s ready to go back to the ‘hood isn’t new at all. His gritty, drawling voice isn’t the most pleasant, but unabashedly slow and blunt delivery is undoubtedly refreshing. He’s definitely not the most complex lyricist you’ll ever hear, but he’s a subtly insightful one. When Jay-Z is on his A-game, there are only a handful of rappers who can stay with him. Then “Go Crazy” was released as a single. And when I actually heard him rap, all I heard was another uncreative, unoriginal, and uninspired gangsta rapper from the south. I saw him as a caricature, just another rapper playing down to gangsta rap’s conventional wisdom. All the references to being a hustler, not a rapper to not caring about hip-hop just rubbed me wrong. At the surface, he embodied everything I thought was wrong with mainstream rap.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |