Tosten Burks stands with Ashley Wagner.
It was only a matter of time before we started using the term post-Bronson. Shit happens when you toss out guest verses faster than Shake can post them. And so, here is Retchy P with “Since My Dog Died,” looking dapper and eating snapper in Maine. The Jersey native has Action’s co-sign, meaning two things: 1) the couplets are crude, cocky, and vital 2) the fish is seared to perfection. The song comes from a December tape so grimy that Bronson himself would hesitate before eating butternut squash and ravioli off it.
After stealing the show and all the lightly battered yams on Blue Chips 2’s “Flip Ya” last October, Retch teamed with the Jersey-born, Chicago-bred Thelonious Martin to make Polo Sporting Goods. It is 11 songs of filth – Retch spitting dusty assonance from the darkest corner of the silliest dive, Martin looping smoke-stained vinyl until it bleeds. Further proof that one-producer projects will cure all our #SochiProblems. Retch is as meticulous of a writer as his large friend. On “Marmalade Sky,” he executes the most gully Bellagio con since Danny Ocean and the most detailed chase scene since “The Art of Peer Pressure.” On “Burgundy Windbreakers,” he stuffs his face over equestrian plates (only 10 ever made in the states; he’s got a set of eight). On “Special Jim,” he tells a tale about an honor-student special Olympian so tragic and stark it had Earl tweeting “this is absolutely ridiculous storytelling at its finest.”
The album creaks and moans and offends and makes you press rewind, a perfect soundtrack for bitching about the polar vortex. Retch flows like Roc Marciano at his most slurred and Thelonious assembles the best set of Alchemist beats since whatever Alchemist put out this week. Welcome these two to the dinner table.
