When there are rappers born in 1995 making music... and good music at that... you KNOW you old. Or older than you were. Or perhaps it's the feeling of "why-did-I-not-make-more-of-an-effort-on-the-things-that-I-loved-back-when-I-was-his-age?-damn-this-passage-of-time-called-life" - you know what I mean? In any case, I dunno if I've written about this guy before, but whatever: it's Joey Badass.
Yeah I know it's 'Bada$$' but for the purpose of convenience on my part, I'm eschewing those dollar signs. It's deliberate, yo.
Joey Badass is part of hip-hop collective Pro Era (short for Progressive Era), formed with a group of friends when still at high school. I'm still feeling like almost sick that someone could have so much drive at such young an age. It starts, I guess, as a desire to get out of high school and continues as a true calling. Call it cliché but it certainly seems this way.
I was sure that I wrote about a song of his a while ago. Well, apparently not. Here's the latest nudge I've had to start writing about music again, 'Wendy N Becky' by Mr Badass himself along with another young (19) rapper named Chance The Rapper (accidentally googled 'Chance The Raper' first - ick). Get listening.
Suuch a tune, right? Right? It reminds me of the kind of song you'd find on the first or second Tony Hawk's. Not to say that that's a bad thing. It's actually a really good thing. A kind of borrowed nostalgia that you get for America and American things when you've just been exposed to so much America in your childhood, suburbs and skateboarding that you can TRY to replicate in the UK but it's... not the same.
Funny/clever lyrics, scratching (you don't hear much of that unless you actually look for it, as in, it ain't popular) and a beat that is a sweltering sidewalk winding its way aimlessly along - it's lovely. The overall sound that pervades everything is a sultry kinda sound, distorted by heat and sunlight. And there's a bit of a joke in the title, ho ho, yes there is (at least I think there is). Check the Urban Dictionary entries for Becky and Wendy, lols.
As for Pro Era: a kinda more normal and, dare I say: better, Odd Future? Perhaps. We'll just have to wait and see what comes next.
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Learn about Chance The Rapper on Wikipedia
Follow Chance The Rapper on Twitter
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Visit Chance The Rapper's official site
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