{"id":1018508,"date":"2023-02-10T16:37:34","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T13:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1018508"},"modified":"2023-02-10T16:37:34","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T13:37:34","slug":"lil-poppa-legend-yae-and-why-the-best-southern-pain-rap-is-more-than-just-sad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1018508","title":{"rendered":"Lil Poppa, Legend Yae, and Why the Best Southern Pain Rap Is More Than Just Sad"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lil Poppa, Legend Yae, and Why the Best Southern Pain Rap Is More Than Just Sad<\/h1>\n
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Plus more highs and lows from the world of rap, including a bong-ripped hallucination from Xaviersobased and a hyperspeed rush of chaos from New York drill rapper WinterDaBrat.<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Alphonse Pierre<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Lil Poppa. Photo by Edy Perez. Image by Callum Abbott.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Pitchfork writer Alphonse Pierre\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0rap column<\/em>covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, weird tweets, fashion trends<\/em>\u2014and anything else that catches his attention.<\/em><\/p>\n

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How Legend Yae and Lil Poppa add emotional nuance to their pain rap<\/h2>\n

Every now and then I swear that I\u2019m officially over all those wounded croons and melancholy piano riffs that have become standard in Southern pain rap. Then I find myself back on YouTube, smashing refresh on Tampa bluesman\u00a0T9ine\u2019s page, or diligently reading the comments underneath\u00a0Rylo Rodriguez leaks, hoping for any hints of his unreleased joint album with\u00a0NoCap, which has become mythical to those who treat YoungBoy like Tupac. It\u2019s easy for the scene to seem homogenous when listening casually, but a deeper dive makes its subtleties shine through.<\/p>\n

Just take Legend Yae\u2019s\u00a0Drugs and a Mic Too<\/em>, released last month, and Lil Poppa\u2019s\u00a0Heavy Is the Head<\/em>, from November. Both are driven by haunted blues and clear-eyed reflections, and both capture a wide range of emotions. The worst pain rap can be simply described by a single feeling\u2014the sad one, the emo one, etc.\u2014but these two projects are fully realized: There\u2019s agony and joy, fatalism and optimism.<\/p>\n

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Orangeburg, South Carolina\u2019s Legend Yae makes melodic pain rap that needs to be played loud. The beats on\u00a0Drugs and a Mic Too<\/em>\u00a0have the expected somber keys and plucky acoustics, but there\u2019s also the booming Jetsonmade percussion of \u201cGod Flow\u201d and the soulful, Zaytoven-inspired streaks of \u201cPrada Her.\u201d He sing-raps about loss, addiction, and broken faith; traumatic confessions brush up against ordinary rap flexes. Yet it\u2019s his voice that pulls the emotional strings\u2014in a snap, bluesy coos turn into forceful wails. If you try to predict the direction his vocals will go in, you will usually be wrong.<\/p>\n

On \u201cRubi Rose,\u201d he raps, \u201cAlways keep a thick bitch, that shit like my sixth sense,\u201d but Yae isn\u2019t just saying he is to fine women what Haley Joel Osment is to the dead\u2014his delivery is bruised, desperate. And when you expect to hear heartbreak, like the bit on \u201cAshes on the Bible\u201d about a pastor who let him down, he just shrugs. The thudding, Cash Cobain-produced \u201cNo Regular Artist\u201d sounds as fun as anything on Cash and Chow Lee\u2019s impossibly horny 2022 tape\u00a02 Slizzy 2 Sexy<\/em>\u00a0until you remember Yae is singing about paranoia.<\/p>\n

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In comparison,\u00a0Lil Poppa is a hardcore lyricist.\u00a0Heavy Is the Head<\/em> is weary but hopeful, as the Jacksonville, Florida crooner tries to free himself from his mental obstacles long enough to enjoy life. \u201cSeem like everybody perfect but us, I swear it\u2019s hard to adjust,\u201d he sings in a glazed melody on \u201cGet It Done.\u201d His writing goes against the grain of popular pain rap because it doesn\u2019t do all the work for you. There\u2019s always multiple moods tied to a single thought. He\u2019s guilty about his success, feeling it was unfair that he was the one who made it, but also recognizes that it had to be someone: \u201cThem young niggas FaceTime me, still in the hood\/They say I\u2019m motivation, they wanna see me with my chains on.\u201d Too many weepy pianos aside, he zooms in on specifics that make his lyrics feel alive, subverting cliche through real human emotion.<\/p>\n

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Four tracks that inspired producer\u00a0Zoomo\u2019s breezy beats<\/h2>\n

Zoomo\u2019s sweet sample-based loops have been on my radar since\u00a0Sunday Holiday<\/em>, his 2019 collaborative album with\u00a0YL. Raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a town best known as a college basketball battleground, he built a relationship with New York rappers YL and Starker, who were drawn in by his beats\u2019 soft, chill style. As a trio, Zoomo, YL, and Starker released\u00a0RRR: The Album<\/em>\u00a0at the end of last year, filled with instrumentals that range from dreamy to dusty. I\u2019m particularly fond of\u00a0In Memory Of,<\/em>\u00a0Zoomo\u2019s wistful 2022 joint album with YL, where he samples the kind of old soul you might find in crime flicks like\u00a0A Bronx Tale<\/em>. From his current home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Zoomo hopped on the phone to tell me about four beats that shaped him as a producer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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J Dilla: \u201cWorkinonit\u201d<\/div>\n

Zoomo: Years ago, on the ride home from a random Thanksgiving, my cousin was playing this song. It\u2019s the first track on\u00a0Donuts<\/em>, and I just instantly had so many questions. At that point I was already thinking about making beats, but it completely changed the way I thought about it. I didn\u2019t understand that a producer could be their own artist and stand out even without vocals on top.<\/p>\n

PoptartPete: \u201cMyBackHurts\u201d<\/div>\n

PoptartPete was a skater who would always have beats playing in his skate videos. Around 2013, I eventually checked out his SoundCloud and sent him a DM asking, \u201cHow do you make all of this?\u201d He was mad open and ended up being the first person I ever spoke to about how to make beats. He essentially told me everything I needed to know, pointing me to Ableton and how to sample. I pirated Ableton on my mom\u2019s computer that night and just ran with it.<\/p>\n

Tommy Wright III: \u201cDrive By\u201d<\/div>\n

Since I was about 13 years old I\u2019ve been collecting cassettes. I\u2019ve got so many: Dilla, DJ Screw, Capone-N-Noreaga, underground beat tapes. They were always just super accessible and decently priced\u2014at least they used to be\u2014so it became my thing. Tommy Wright III was in one of the first batches of tapes I bought, and I loved \u201cDrive By\u201d because of the way the vocal sample rides and the dustiness of it. If I try to listen to it on YouTube I can\u2019t\u2014it\u2019s not the same unless it\u2019s through the actual cassette. Now I make a lot of beats with tapes and tape machines, trying to recreate that feeling.<\/p>\n

Little Brother: \u201cLovin\u2019 It\u201d [production by 9th Wonder]<\/div>\n

Little Brother are from Durham, and growing up 30 minutes away in Chapel Hill, they were one of the first local artists I heard. My pops used to have some of their CDs, so I listened to them religiously. \u201cLovin\u2019 It\u201d was one of the songs that introduced me to them; I was obsessed with the way the chorus comes in with the sampled vocals. There was always emotion tied to 9th Wonder\u2019s beats. That\u2019s what I try to do whenever I\u2019m chopping a sample: I want you to feel happy, sad, heartbroken, or whatever I\u2019m feeling.<\/p>\n

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WinterDaBrat: \u201cWhole Lotta Glah Glah Boom Shit\u201d<\/h2>\n
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In the comments section of emerging New York drill rapper WinterDaBrat\u2019s crazily titled new song \u201cWhole Lotta Glah Glah Boom Shit\u201d is a handy tutorial: \u201cdead ass had to play it at 0.75x speed to understand everything.\u201d This is not the type of fast rapping you might find on a Twista or Busta Rhymes track; those two have grace, breath control, and an uncanny ability to still be understood while going at hyperspeed. WinterDaBrat is like a derailed train. She\u2019s basically rattling off gibberish, and her ad libs are so loud that it feels like someone\u2019s calling you on the phone while they\u2019re waiting for the subway. It\u2019s the punkest song I\u2019ve heard in a minute.<\/p>\n

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Xaviersobased: \u201chow i feel 2\u201d<\/h2>\n
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The final 45 seconds of Xaviersobased\u2019s \u201chow i feel 2\u201d has the eccentric rapper repeating the question \u201cDo you really think most of all these niggas real?\u201d over and over (and over) again. This soon becomes trippier than the\u00a0brainwashing scene in\u00a0The Manchurian Candidate<\/em>, especially as the twitchy beat by Kashpaint fades out, and Xaviersobased is left echoing the phrase into nothingness. Is it that \u201cthese niggas\u201d are\u00a0literally<\/em> not real? Maybe I\u2019m overthinking it, but that\u2019s the kind of bong-ripped mindset the song sent me into. And the track has all the qualities of Xaviersobased\u2019s best SoundCloud music: Songs evolve as they go, lines stand out that could mean everything or nothing, and suddenly I\u2019m sending the link to all of my friends with no explanation at all.<\/p>\n

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Obscure NBA players and rap meet in Kurtoart\u2019s drawings<\/h2>\n

The Twitter account of artist Kurtoart, who most notably drew the cinematic\u00a0cover of Lil Yachty\u2019s single \u201cPoland\u201d\u2014which looks like \u201cWashington Crossing the Delaware\u201d but with the American flag replaced with a bottle of cough syrup\u2014has now become a meeting place for the niche corner of the internet where references to online rap stars and obscure NBA players are intertwined. Around the end of January, the Louisville, Kentucky artist began to take requests of what to draw next, and was flooded with suggestions like \u201cSummrs dunking on Mario Chalmers\u201d and \u201cLucki hitting a fadeaway on Kentavious Caldwell Pope.\u201d He actually\u00a0did\u00a0them, and more, including my favorites \u201cCarti Allen Iverson stepping over Fred VanVleet\u201d and a special edition \u201cRx Papi dunking on Glen Havis\u201d piece\u00a0he drew for No Bells Blog. It\u2019s a confirmation of what we already knew: The NBA and rap exist in the same world.<\/p>\n

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Ot7Quanny: \u201cNew Money\u201d [ft.\u00a0G.T.]<\/h2>\n
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Qt7Quanny singles are getting increasingly operatic, with beats that feature dramatic, church-like vocal samples that could soundtrack Tom Cruise at the high-society orgy in\u00a0Eyes Wide Shut.<\/em> \u201cNew Money\u201d is the most theatrical of the bunch. His lyrics are more vivid than before too, and his flow is slower than ever, so every bar lingers. \u201cI got PTSD don\u2019t put the car in park,\u201d he raps before taking a half-second pause that feels so much longer. By the time he\u2019s onto the next thought, you\u2019ll still be stuck on the last. The only option is to run the whole thing back.<\/p>\n

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Brian Brown: \u201cNBA Jam\u201d<\/h2>\n
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Nashville rapper Brian Brown\u2019s new EP\u00a0Two Minute Drill<\/em> is centered around urgency, as he crams his thoughts into five songs that run two minutes or less. The result is extremely motivated rapping with few throwaway lines, like Bruce Willis trying to get to the ticking time bomb before it goes\u00a0boom<\/em>. You can feel that fire on the intro, \u201cNBA Jam\u201d: The Sir Illington beat is laid back, and Brown rips into it, digging deep for every line. \u201cWay the world going I might cop a zip\/Smoke the whole bag in like one sitting\/Suicide bombers in my own city\/Whole thang really looks too suspicious,\u201d he raps in a blur. In a SoundCloud note he wrote about the choice not to extend these beats but rather fit his thoughts into their short runtimes. It was a smart decision: Sometimes the best rapping comes from working inside of barriers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/thepitch\/lil-poppa-legend-yae-and-why-the-best-southern-pain-rap-is-more-than-just-sad\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Columns Lil Poppa, Legend Yae, and Why the Best Southern Pain Rap Is More Than Just Sad Plus more highs and lows from the world of rap, including a bong-ripped hallucination from Xaviersobased and a hyperspeed rush of chaos from New York drill rapper WinterDaBrat. By Alphonse Pierre February 10, 2023 Lil Poppa. Photo by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1018509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-1018508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1018508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1018509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1018508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1018508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1018508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}