Lil Boosie Gets Loaded
Photo via The Fader
I know I’ve been scarce. There’s been an avalanche of deadlines, an undisclosed long-term writing project, playoff basketball, and sometimes, days just disappear. There’s too much good music to pay proper tribute. Wooden Shjips, the new Kid Cudi and Playboy Tre mixtapes, Belbury Poly’s From an Ancient Star, and anything Grateful Dead/Ethiopiques have been the soundtrack. During one 36-hour stretch, I seemingly did nothing but pad around a squalid apartment, dilated eyes, dirty coffee mug in hand, writing feverishly while Pig Pen hollered mournful, filthy blues. It was some kind of wonderful.
As is Boosie’s “Loaded,” from his latest, Thug Passion mixtape. Those of you just tuning in to Boosie can’t be blamed. I was a reasonably late convert too, the lamentable result of hearing “Wipe Me Down,” a few too many migraine-inducing times.* But judging Boosie off the strength of “Wipe Me Down,” is like evaluating Joe Buddens strictly from “Pump It Up.”
In the half-decade since coke superseded marijuana as rap’s drug du jour, the potheads of America have suffered from a deficiency of great weed tunes. “Loaded” is the best one since “Blow Treez,” the Red and Meth collabo from Red Gone Wild. Boosie smokes blunts of train wreck and purple kush. If you’ve smoked blunts of train wreck and purple kush, you understand. “Loaded” means too high, but it also means fueled–in the case of this song, it means both, the necessary smoke to get you through another session, and the wobbly feeling you get when you starting losing things and empathizing with Plaxico Burress. There’s a joyful resignation here, acknowledging a creative debt to a drug, but simultaneously singing its praises. At the very least, this will hold you down until Blackout 2 leaks.
* I’ve since come around on “Wipe Me Down,” which is either the result of an increased ability to appreciate a good catch phrase , or just the simple realization that spelling out “B-O-O-S-I-E” is the most entertaining thing in the world.
Download:
MP3: Lil Boosie-”Loaded”
MP3: Lil Boosie ft. Young Jeezy & Webbie-”Ain’t the Same No More”
ZIP: Lil Boosie-Thug Passion Mixtape (Left-Click)
Stumble It!
May 7th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Since I live in Baton Rouge, I heard “Wipe Me Down” about six million times at bars and parties, and hated every second of it. Then one night, I absolutely loved it. Naturally I had been throwing down cheap whiskey all night, but now I’m happily onboard.
May 7th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I don’t know how I feel about this blog getting cited in the VIBE top 50. I feel it’s gonna devolve into “EM MERCED THEM ON DAT SHIT!!!! G-UNIT 4 LIFE FREE YAYO” up in here. blowin’ up.
Nah that’s out, but congrats.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:41 am
I suppose it’s unfair to evaluate Joe Budden strictly on the basis of Pump It Up, but it is telling, or a problem, that he’s totally incapable of making anything for the radio without devolving into 2nd-grade-level bullshit. Remember the first time The Growth was supposed to come out and the first single was going to be ‘Gangsta Party’ f. Nate Dogg? Maybe that’s just his misguided assessment of what you need to do to make a hit (and it is misguided, think of all the similar mixtape punchliners who have made pretty clever punchline-laden hits), but I see it more as a real limitation he has. I’ve just never bought into this, like, “somehow the label held a gun to his head and made him record ‘Pump It Up,’ so let’s pretend it doesn’t exist and isn’t, in fact, the only song the public knows him for” theory.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:33 am
He’s definitely limited–which is why he’s a good fit in Slaughterhouse. Neither him nor Ortiz, nor Royce, nor Crooked I will ever record a hit single, their best bet is to combine fanbases, make niche music for underground heads, and accept it.
It’s not like El-P and Aesop Rock are attempting to do auto-tuned dance songs.