Last week’s prediction: Non-white. After this, you can bet on that.
Weird–real rap takes its turn on the iTunes free single carousel. Jay Rock is the reigning West Coast hope not named Nipsey Hussle: Blood instead of Crip, Watts instead of Compton/Crenshaw, direct instead of lyrical. A halfway Game protégé, Rock has the same gruff, no frills delivery: Buy him expensive production (Cool & Dre, here) and some decent features and let his totally undistracting presence fill in the gaps. Last year’s “Lift Me Up,” with its creeping, post-Dre slow-ride trunk-rattle, was pretty much the ideal for a rapper like Jay Rock, who can’t quite help being boring when placed front and center.
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Hopeful first single “All My Life in the Ghetto” goes the “Hate It or Love It” route instead–aspirations written all over the weird cliché mash-up that is the title here. Same mish-mash collection of childhood details, sped-up soul anthem string-assisted beat, and high-profile rapper to trade bars with. Wayne takes the 50 Cent role here, lending Jay Rock an inkling of a personality and some forward momentum. But it sure is hard to engineer your way out of a cliché when your whole approach is basically to cynically treat it like one.
Next week’s prediction: Josh Schwartz co-sign