Producer Skarr Akbar (an excellent Baltimore rapper in his own right) does something to New Edition’s “Can You Stand The Rain” so that it sounds like the music to an early 90s after-school special and Los unleashes all his concerns, frustrations, and worries over top of it, on some real Cam’ron “Harlem Streets”-style, tight-lipped sad-sack shit: “When I think of the feeling of seeing my face on a billboard in my own city/I reminisce like, “damn, I got nobody to zone with me.”
Los races through this Shooter highlight, firing off as many references to the minor victories and major tragedies of his life and the way they intertwine (“I’m focused on my vision, but damn I’m missin’ my dogs”), trying to keep up with that sped-up sample, and rapping like his time is running out, which makes sense when you’re a guy once signed to Bad Boy, who’s slowly building himself back up with mixtapes because suddenly, there’s a rap scene getting more and more comfortable with vibrant, on-beat obsessed rhymers again.
The most affecting aspect though, is the way Los bounces over the bad stuff in his life, enough for you to know it’s there, but not enough that it’s dwelled upon in great, street-cred grabbing detail. The line, “I think about our father, callin’ some time” refers to his dad, a high school basketball coach who was tragically murdered (shot in the head) when Los was still in his teens. One more contribution to the always entertaining “rap some serious shit over a corny, sped-up sample” sub-genre for sure.
Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?
I know this going back nearly a decade, but listening to old Diplomats mixtapes and Cam’ron songs, there is something very odd in a song like Cam’ron’s “Girls” or Jim Jones and Juelz Santana’s “Facts of Life” where the raps seems so out of place over certain sped up samples. “Stand the Rain” is not as jarring as the original sample is pretty somber, which compared to “Facts of Life” when the original sample is from TV show theme that seems to exist in a very different world than the one Juelz is rapping about.
AAAAAAHHHHHHH
29 Nov 10 at 2:56 pm