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MadeinTYO: Retro 88

So MadeinTYO finally dropped his debut album, Sincerely, Tokyo. I’m probably not alone in thinking this weirdly removed from the time period when MadeinTYO was popping. Uber Everywhere and Skateboard P were bops; that’s an indisputable fact. However, it’s even weirder that this is apparently his last album as well (allegedly, we’ll have to see).

Retro 88 is the second track on the album, but it’s the first track on the album that really sounds like the MadeinTYO we know and love. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate artists trying different things with their music, but it’s always good to have a signature sound your listeners can latch on to. The first song is very Quavo-esque, in the sense that he’s rapping as if he’s in detention, copying sentences. I know he likes The Simpsons but it doesn’t make for a great song (Ned Flanders is amazing, though).

The song is produced by K Swisha and knocks exactly in the right way. MadeinTyo is actually rapping, not to mention he’s brought back his notable ad-lib. If he doesn’t say skrt-skrt, is it really a MadeinTYO song? Also, he’s talking about how dope his outfit is and smoking backwoods, which says a lot about him.

The downside of the song is how short it is, but most of his songs (and those of artists with that same Gwinnett, North Atlanta sound) tend to have one verse for each person rapping, even if that means the song only has one verse. I suppose it’s an acknowledgement of how simplistic the sound is; if it’s repeated too much, it can be annoying. But at just the right length, it makes for a reliable formula.

Play this whole album in your car, loud. A party will appear, even if you weren’t headed towards one.

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XXXtentacion & Lil Pump: Arms Around

I guess everyone loves music from a dead man, especially one they are’t even supposed to like. For the sake of just being a person who listens to music and not going into the fact that most of the people we listen to are terrible in general, and dear God why do people do the things they do when you want so badly to like them . . . Let’s just listen to this song that has Skrillex on the production.

Though this song is off of his first posthumous album, as often happens on songs where Xxxtentacion is listed among other artists, he comes in on the chorus, rather than any verses. He’s singing, rather than rapping this time, with a little bit of Spanish sprinkled in, just in time for the Latin American Music Awards. It’s nice, sweet, romantic.

Lil Pump comes in, his voice screwed up, but he does dip into his regular voice periodically in his verse. It’s not bad for a Lil Pump verse, but it’s short for my tastes-as are most of the verses on this song, and many Lil Pump or Xxxtentacion songs; I think they plan to exceed 10 bars. This song is structured a lot more like Latin dancehall than a regular rap song, though most of the contributing artists are rappers. Simply meaning the verses are shorter, you encounter the chorus more often, and everyone is vocalizing, in this case, with the help of somewhat heavy autotune. But these are artists who’ve played with their genre-typing throughout their careers, and experimentation is good in a culture that will consume and pigeon-hole an artist before they even know who they are.

Swae Lee definitely has a bit more romance to his verse, but Maluma really takes over the song. His verse is all Spanish, and he is able to bridge the gap between vocalizing and truly singing a lot better than the others, though I don’t want to sell them short.

This song will probably be played in the pop music clubs and maybe a couple discotecas.

I wonder what the Rio Santana version sounds like.

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Powers Pleasant: Please Forgive

When I first saw that Powers Pleasant had dropped a new song with Denzel Curry, IDK, Zombie Juice, and Zillakami, I told myself not to listen to it. There’s no need for me to be getting yelled at in the middle of the night by Denzel Curry and Zombie Juice, regardless of how crazy the production would be on this song.

Well . . . I wasn’t wrong.

I’ll start by saying, yes, the beat goes off. Powers Pleasant did his thing. You can feel the bass in your spine and, while the instruments come in a bit asymmetrically, the rhythm is there. The song definitely has the weirdness that is expected from the mixture of Beast Coast backpack rap and a Floridian.

Denzel Curry comes in with the first verse and slams it. His tone is a bit more subdued than on some of his other bangers, but still has the same chaotic energy. Any man who calls himself the new Tapatio knows exactly what he’s doing.

IDK has the next verse and the hook. To be completely honest, I’ve never heard IDK rap before this moment. And though his voice comes in a bit lower than Curry, it blends into the beat perfectly. Look, I don’t want to say it’s seductive, but as soon as he says “I hit the Flea Flicker”, my initial reaction was “whose bedroom voice is this?!” He sat into the rhythm so well I almost felt myself sink in with him. The tenor of his voice turned what was just an in-your-face banger into something surround-sound. He should’ve kept that going a bit longer.

Zillakami came in screaming . . . I wasn’t really expecting much else. Zombie Juice surprisingly wasn’t yelling. I forgot this man actually has bars when he’s putting effort towards rapping and not towards . . . being the loudest one on the track.

This is definitely a track you can play in the car as your head to the function. I hope your system is bass-boosted.