hip-hop

Sunny and breezy, often funny, usually hazy and stoney and a little scattered, but the flows are never lazy (even when sardonic and occasionally slurred). The first half is a rap album with Denmark Vessey and occasional guests rapping over beats from Earl Sweatshirt and Knxwledge. The second half is a beat tape produced by Vessey (split into individual tracks for 6-14, combined into one 10 minute track for #15). Dope sample based beats, catchy production, and even the one or two obvious samples are flipped in weird new ways.

RIYL: Earl Sweatshirt, Knxwledge, Vince Staples, Madlib's rapper collab albums, Elaquent (for the instrumental beat stuff)

favorites: 5, 4, 2, 1, 7-9 (as one track), 15, 10-12 (as one track)

FCCs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 15 (all safe-harbor ok)

1. FCCs ("fuck", multiple) - 4:11 - warm dusky sampled piano notes, clattery bumpin sampled acoustic drum breaks. chill casual shit talking wordplay, elastic flows, MCs trading back and forth. cool closing vocal sample. [Zzzzz (feat. ADAD, prod Earl Sweatshirt)]
2. FCC ("fuck") - 2:47 - chilly layered synth pads over muffled sparse drums. vocals get layered and distorted at times, but pretty much always intelligible. a bit of self-protective distance slightly obscures lovelorn/crushin lyrics. [Trustfall (prod Earl Sweatshirt)]
3. FCC ("mothafucka", "pu--y") - 3:51 - short fake out intro gives way to sunny upbeat horn samples and drum breaks. smooth flows punctuated by occasional sampled vocals. [Stolat (prod Knxwledge)]
4. 3:06 - lo fi filtered horn samples, quiet bird sounds, and muffled shuffling drums live up to the opening declaration "this sounds like a beautiful morning". flows dip in and out of doubletime. sunny vibes, not totally happy, but optimistic. [Sun Go Nova (prod Knxwledge)]
5. FCC (shit, fuck) - 5:00 - chill warbly piano, a little dour, but also warm and playful. lyrics cynical but playful, about chasing trends and popularity, but more funny and nuanced than the usual backpacker tropes. accordian accents, brief percussion changeups, and a guest verse. [Sellout (feat DrxQuinnX & Vic Spencer, prod Earl Sweatshirt)]
6. FCC (fuck) - 0:45 - brief, sunny, funnny random interlude, a little half-jokey spiel about "anything is possible" [Sunrise (Intro)]
7. 0:25 - another really brief interlude, lurchy synth textures and drums, warm, like a little impressionist sketch of late night TV [Morning]
8. 2:12 - direct continuation of the prior, chill, warm, dusky. mostly instrumental, except for brief vocal samples and crowd sounds. beat changes up to lo-fi strings towards the end, then glitches out. [Halal Avacado Toast]
9. 1:27 - direct continuation of the prior, switches up to some late night lo-fi piano loops, with submerged bass and thin lo-fi drum break, all bap not so much boom, short spoken word thing at the very end. [High Noon Titan]
10. 1:32 - continues right out of the prior track, but changes it up more, sunny afternoon vibes, "now you talkin/whatever" sample over keys and shuffling drums. [Rush Hour]
11. 00:37 - continues from prior track, gets sunnier, shorter piano loop, drums get clankier at the end. [Primetime]
12. 1:21 - continues from prior track, brings a little thump back to the kicks, sunfaded vox samples over hazy afternoon hiccuppy melody loops, glitches out on "after laughter/comes tears" sample of wu-tang fame. [Quiet Storm Jam]
13. 1:06 - rides out on a chopped up flip of the tearz sample, adds in some subtle synth bleeps, disjoint in a great way. [Wax Wane Tears]
14. 00:52 - continues out of the previous, flips to something a little more hopeful, still piano and drum samples [Tomorrow Again]
15. FCC (fuck) - 10:20 - one single continuous track putting together all the elements of the instrumental/beat tape tracks on the album. [Sun Go Nova Beat Tape]