You’ve got a rapper, Rittz, and a producer, DJ Burn One, both out of mainstream rap’s mecca Atlanta, making a song for Baller’s Eve, a New York radio show hosted by a bunch of ATL transplants. This is the Southern hip-hop scene rebuilding itself after being chopped up and sold to the majors, piece by piece: “Field Mob, you go here…Pastor Troy go over there…” It’s all finally moving back underground, which is probably a good thing.
“Outta Here” is a great example of this resurgent, underground sound. Rittz says fuck a catchy hook and raps one big extended verse here and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t even notice that’s what going on until a minute and forty seconds later when dude charmingly brags “One verse. How ya like that?” It’s like an elaborate but subtle single-take in a movie: eerily seamless and perfectly-crafted. This is one of those fun-to-listen-to, lots-to-ponder, weighty verses that you can unravel for days. Very excited about White Jesus.
DJ Burn One’s beat channels the dread of John Carpenter’s iconic Halloween theme, has these thick, hulking live drums—shades of Schooly D’s “Signifying Rapper”–and fills in the empty space with his signature, country rap tunes-tinged electronica. After Rittz’s non-stop rapping, the listener gets a break from the rapid-fire rhyming and the beat, this hard, slow-growing instrumental just gets to ride out–for more than a minute! It’s a confident producer move–laying their beat bare like that—and maybe even a subtle message to other up and coming rappers: “Okay, now the rest of you guys, rap a fucking verse after this big, flame-haired maniac just completely blacked-out. Here’s a whole minute…go!”
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