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In the half-decade since coke superseded marijuana as rap’s drug du jour, the potheads of America have suffered from a deficiency of great weed tunes.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)
