When your album cover features two half-naked Asian girls in various states of duress and vomiting, you might imagine that a lot will get glossed over. Bronson plays the Bam Bam Bigelow pro wrestler role well. He understands what it takes to become a star in rap circa 2013. You need a larger than life personality (unless you’re Kendrick), outlandish drug-addled lyrics, viral videos, and a distinctive sense of style. Cue the Giambi lenses, antebellum beard, and adherence to shorts in all types of weather.
But people rarely mention how much Bronson has improved as a rapper and writer. If you go back and listen to him during the Dr. Lecter era, he was invariably flowing in a wheezy double-time and the similes seemed more like non-sequiturs. He’s constructed his own world now. The verses are slower and more confident. The boasts more outlandish and specific. He’s not a gambler, he’s fixing the game between Kentucky and Miami of Ohio. After shows, he takes his family out for octopus. You feel the heat on the leather. His alienation with rap isn’t expressed in complaint, but rather by mentioning that he’s only doing this to send his daughter to law school. Jay Buhner and The Rockers references co-exist like the words were ripped out of your Baseball Digest or WWF Magazine. People fixate on the grossness or call him a gimmick or say they don’t know how much higher he can go. But right now, there are few if any rappers who surprise me as much. You always are waiting for the next line to see what wild shit he will say. And that’s great rap music — to me anyway.
This post inspired by the latest leak from Saab Stories with a berserk Harry Fraud beat and Wiz rapping like Juicy J. The other is Bronson’s demolition man performance on the latest track from Mac Miller.
Stream:
Action Bronson ft. Wiz Khalifa. -“The Rockers”
Mac Miller ft. Action Bronson – “Red Dot Music”
