Jimmy Ness prefers sexcapades to charades
Kevin Gates’ sexcapades are a double-edged sword, or another phallic object. While shock and gossip about his bedroom antics generates click-throughs, it threatens to obscure the fact that he’s among the best rappers working. As I’ve stated here, here and here, few combine lyrical proficiency and remarkable life experience like Gates. “Pourin The Syrup” from 2014’s Luca Brasi 2 mixtape references his sexual interests in full clarity, providing instant gratification for Chatty Pattys in your comment section of choice. But the Louisianan’s retellings of an unconventional sex life are just some of the gripping confessions in his autobiographical raps.
“Syrup” is filled with enough detail for a full season of The Wire. Gates killed someone at 13. Before fame, drug money ensured he could ride through Baton Rouge’s infamous Highland Road with the same Monte Carlo his rap precursor Boosie had. Gates was selling cocaine under roofs equipped with security cameras. He wouldn’t give his product to a thief and was shot while attempting to grab the gun. The tear-dropped sex fiend caught an STD and a friend laughed behind his back while he was sleeping with their sister. Over the course of just four minutes, Gates has given you more of himself than a dozen Datpiff trap fakers.
The hallucinatory video was released last week and doesn’t glorify drank as an easy crutch for A$AP-inspired cool points. Gates’ purple-tinted face appears while he traverses difficult memories with a black-eyed stare. Maybe the tortured rapper uses drank as a therapeutic device rather than a fun accessory. Feverish visuals switch between a vehicle speeding through twilight roads, Gates as a blurred lavender entity and of course, him spilling explicit raps about the dirtiest of sex acts next to a woman he’s rumored to be seeing in real life.
Gates is smart enough to know how to work the media. If you were looking for lyrics to be shocked by, you’ll find them here. But you’re also witnessing the ascent of singular storyteller putting all of himself on record.
