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So, I found Blue Chips 2 kind of boring, or less effective than the first installment. Is this an indication that Bronson needs to switch things up? Where do you see him in five years?
J.R. –Arlington
I’m guessing, or should I say hoping, this question was inspired by Bun B’s visit to Peter Rosenberg and Cipha Sounds excellent, anthropologic and increasingly essential Juan Epstein podcast. In it, they ask Bun to name some current artists he’s into. Action Bronson is one of them, although Bun qualifies it by saying he can’t wait to see what happens when Bam Bam “gets mad”.
What I think Bun’s comment, and your question, are speaking to, is an undeniable lack of tension in Bronson’s body of work. Up to this point, in a relatively short period of time, he’s accomplished something incredible, that takes artists years and many albums to establish. Action has created his own language, a universe of reference built on food, obscure sports figures, wax, and prostitution. It’s a language familiar to even casual hip hop fans at this point, and it’s remarkable that a guy with little major label publicity, big singles or big ticket feature has made the impact that Action has.
However, he’s achieved this with a breakneck release pace and prolificacy that would have already cashed a lesser artist. When you factor in that his music is largely atmosphere, without a defined, “real” personality or narrative to latch onto, it becomes even more impressive that this sort of complaint didn’t rear its head sooner.
I think the answer to you question is no, Bronson won’t change, and in a perfect world he wouldn’t have to. While the Ghost comparisons plagued him early, it’s pretty apparent to me that Action is the heir to Redman’s throne, as the blunted, clown prince of hip hop. Red built a 20 plus year career off cracking jokes, strong wordplay and solid production. I’d like to say Bronson is poised to assume a career much in that vein, but the market has changed dramatically. In his three years of existence, his output nearly equals more than a decade of Reggie Noble’s.
So I think, unfortunately, the end game is Bronson’s shtick will eventually get old. Our appetite for content has rapidly accelerated the expiration date on artist relevancy, and a guy like Bronson can’t afford to stay away for long, so it only seems like a matter of time before we stick him in the bin we put other, great personality rappers with little personality, who briefly strike gold, like Curren$y. My prediction: In 5 years Bronson owns a renovated warehouse in Bushwick that operates as a Hip Hop venue serving great food. He has a viable bi-coastal food truck business in New York and L.A., and a food travel show on Vice.
Moderately Anticipated Debut Album from Big Baby Gandhi dropped recently.
Lugubrious poverty raps over lo-fi casio production, its the R&B Liquid Swords.
debut album from big baby gandhi – would appreciate a listen
-Nafis A.
So I’ve heard many a critic bemoan the existence of these form letter “Hey man, listen to my album!” emails from aspiring rappers but I’ve never actually received one until now. Let it be known that if you send your shit to mailbag, we will listen to it, and we may write on it, but be careful what you wish for, particularly if you’re marketing your project as “R&B Liquid Swords.”
Of course, this is no random aspiring rapper, but Big Baby Gandhi, an artist once promoted under the Greedhead label run by one time Hipster Rap darlings, Das Racist. On principle, I never got down with that whole movement, and to me that group represented the very lowest moment of, let’s say “Internet Rap 1.0”, when a bunch of pretenders to the throne emerged as manufactured talent, and in this new, open, meritocratic system critics and blogs alike traded influence with sweaty brows claiming this kid with an epic Myspace page, or that kid’s Bandcamp was the truth and in a year he’d be running rap.
But none of this has much to do with Big Baby Gandhi, a former protégé who, I’m relieved to report, has very little of that group’s unbearable, ironic shitty Hipster residue. Unfortunately, it’s just shitty. When I was in High School, a bunch of dudes in my town got really into rapping. They made booths out of plywood and stapled egg crates to the board to muffle sound, they hustled to buy laptops and studio quality mics, they began teaching themselves how to compose on Fruity Loops.
The music those kids made shits all over Big Baby Gandhi’s self-produced “Debut” (titled as such despite this being his sixth [?] project). Let’s start with the beats. They’re paper thin, with barely audible drums and simple loops often relying on a cheap, glitchy synths. How intentional this quality is, I don’t know and I’m not interested.
Thematically, “Debut” seems to be about the hustle for wealth, something BBG is conflicted in his desire for and resentment of. There’s a lot of chest bumping lunch pail hater rap here, commingling with sympathy inducing lines like, “Wish I was ‘luminati/my moms shouldn’t work so hard”.
As a rapper with several projects under his belt, BBG is pretty startlingly unpolished. His voice, he can’t do anything about, but he delivers in a bizarre Southernish drawl despite claiming Queens, and as he rails against the trends of the day and wack rappers who practice it. He falls prey to amateurish attempts at aping them. “Black Lipstick” is a High School sophomore’s interpretation of Nothing Was The Same, while “Roll Call” is an unconvincing stroll down Stay Trippy.
These dollar bin knock offs are preferable to the moments when Ghandi attempts to trespass on his mentors’ property with their brand of racial/nationalist tangent on “Green Card”. Ghandi attempts to make his immigrant story specific with superficial mentions of the Indian foodstuffs his mom needs from an ethnic Queens grocery, and lines like “White people say we hella good neighbors”, but it’s aspirational shlock that goes nowhere and says next to nothing about an actual immigrant struggle or what his green card actually means to him.
“Debut” is an under thought, unfocused mash-up, unsure if it wants to be relatable everyman rap or a mainstream grab, and it succeeds at neither. It’s no fun beating up on a guy’s hobby, but if Gandhi really wants to help his mom, he’ll stop wasting time in the studio and get a second job.
