Amazingly, we’ve only covered him once, sort of…
[Video]
[5.14]
Alfred Soto: After teasing with synth farts over a percussive sample from Mtume’s “Juicy,” the boasting begins, and it’s less offensive than the usual. However, the lack of bitch jokes reduces Action to a rather dull fellow. No, no, no: don’t slow down, baby.
[4]
Brad Shoup: Just what you’d expect from Bronsolino: in-and-out on a track that wicks away sweat. The source material’s famous enough, so I’m thinking of it as a mixtape cut, which makes me feel okay about the third verse falling off. So does my suspicion that a lot of rappers listen to Coldplay (let’s see that flip sometime plz). The “doomsday prepper/Tuesday leather” couplet finishes the recouping of your investment.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: Technically skilled, but with the sort of personality (“stop talking/just go down baby”) that makes you want to avoid at all costs.
[3]
Iain Mew: “Slow down, baby” it commands, but the slowness and dullness of its drum loop turns “Strictly 4 My Jeeps” into a slog. That and Action Bronson having little of interest to say, but that actually feels like the lesser problem.
[3]
Jonathan Bogart: Continual declamation at a single pace without changing up the dynamics at all grows wearying over time. The man’s got some skill tucked away somewhere, but it’s hidden behind stacks of Call Me Clever.
[5]
Anthony Easton: I love the skitter of this: how it starts with a percussive element then moves into a siren, how it starts fairly slow then speeds up. Even the slight slowdown (when he tells the producer to “slow down”) has that push. I like the Coldplay reference and the care bear notation. I wonder what “Every Sunday in my Tuesday leather” means, but it’s evocative. I could do without “finest vagina,” but his food references (this time lamb and sauce) are always welcome. I am excited by how he sings. I am delighted that the person that reminds me the most of Wu-Tang is a first-generation Albanian immigrant from Flushing.
[7]
Josh Langhoff: My upstanding son suggests that when you’re punching someone in the face on Picture Day, you should yell out the catchphrase, “Say cheese!” It dawns on me that I’ve failed as a parent, that this is how a life of casual brutality begins, with tongue in cheek and too much Skylanders. Guilt! Shame! Terror! All embedded in a boom-bap strut I’m powerless to resist.
[7]