Welcome to Mixdown, an ongoing series where Pitchfork staffers and contributors talk about mixtapes, mixes, and other beat-based ephemera that may not be covered in our reviews section but are worth discussing. Today, Wesley Case, Meaghan Garvey, and David Turner talk about Big Quis, Big Sean, and Kendrick Lamar.
Big Quis: My TurnWesley Case: “How the hell you from Michigan and you don’t own a mink?” raps Big Quis on “Get Money Bum” from his new project that dropped last week, My Turn. The Detroit rapper and Doughboyz Cashout member fills this 16-track mixtape with these grounded-but-potent boasts that I can’t get enough of. Meaghan, you just broke down Detroit’s street rap scene—how big of a deal is My Turn?
Meaghan Garvey: A lot of Quis’ lines here, like the one you cited and stuff like, “Don’t pop no molly and I do not sip no damn lean!” let you know right away just how singular of a scene Detroit rap is right now—they’re playing a whole different ballgame than the rest of the country, and I love it. OnMy Turn, Quis solidifies his position as Doughboyz’ most talented individual member. What I love about this project—and this whole wave of Detroit rappers, actually—is how unrelentingly positive it is, especially coming from a city that’s often presented in a depressing light. Even though a lot of the music is informed by struggle, it’s all so optimistic: live-in-the-moment, humanist baller music.
My favorite track here is probably “Feel Good Don’t It”, for those very reasons. It gives me the same warm feelings I got from Rocko’s “Feels Guud” last year, and not just because of the name. Quis isn’t so much bragging about the spoils of his success, but revelling in the opportunity to take care of his family and friends. It really makes me smile. David, what were you feeling here?
David Turner: I wish I felt quite as positive on Big Quis’ project as you both. My Turn on a personal level is kind of a rap dream in that it takes from Cash Money/No Limit production Doughboyz Cashout’s excellent We Run the City 4 and expands the musical scope to even find a place for a Keith Sweat interpolation (“Make This Cash Forever”). Big Quis was the most noticeable voice from Doughboyz and this shows that as a rapper he has a lot more to say than Doughboyz Cashout’s own work, which did become repetitive in their unrelenting talk about getting money. Yet for the whole project I never felt quite as engaged as I wanted to be, but perhaps that has more to just learning new names, voices, and slang from a new-to-me rap hotbed than its actual quality?
MG: I guess that can happen when we’re talking about a member of a supergroup that usually crams its songs with upwards of four distinct rappers—there’s a learning curve when it comes to holding down a track on your own. I do think Quis has hits here, though: namely “Mayweather”, which seems to be buzzing a bit, and “Star Wars”, the latter of which makes the most compelling case for partying in VIP I’ve ever heard: “We in VIP, we don’t hang around the humans!” really speaks my language. Wesley, which tracks stood out to you?
WC: As you pointed out, “Mayweather” and “Star Wars” are the obvious and most accessible entry points here, and yes, those songs bang. I also love the “Intro”, where Quis quickly establishes his reputation as a Detroit player (“I talk shit and make you laugh on every thing I’m on”) over a floating, featherweight beat. Another highlight is “Hero”, which on the surface seems like the tired hip-hop trope of a guy pitching a girl on how he’d “save” her—and it is that—but Quis drops little jewels that make the track stand out. The song is at its best when Quis puts down the woman’s man in funny ways: “He must of loss his mind in that little ass apartment.”
But My Turn works for me simply because this is A1 shit-talking. Mega-stars like Gucci Mane and Rick Ross exaggerate punchlines for ballin’ and writerly effect, but Big Quis raps with such steely conviction that you’d think he was hooked up to a lie-detector in the booth. And there is something so refreshing about this brand of relatively low-stakes bragging; it remains appealingly workmanlike because of Big Quis’ plainly effective rapping. Rap has so many—too many—sing-songy, Auto-Tuned disciples of Future that it wasn’t hard for me to get on board here.
MG: I had to chuckle a little on “Feels Good Don’t It” when Cashout 313 dropped the cool-dad punchline, “I’m a problem like Ariana Grande.” Another Detroit-born rapper who knows a little something about that is Big Sean, who announced earlier this month he’s signed to Roc Nation and dropped four new songs in celebration. I’m still a little skeeved out by #BigGrande’s relationship (mostly because it suggests Ariana’s going to keep littering her albums with terrible Big Sean verses), but I gotta say—most of these tracks exceed my (considerably low) expectations. Whoa.
WC: When I truly love a Big Sean song, it feels like a moment because it so rarely happens. The last time was “Guap”, but we can add “I Don’t Fuck With You” to the list because there’s little to deny here. (Clearly, production places a massive role in both.) At first, I blamed Sean for wasting an incredible Kanye West/DJ Mustard beat on a churlish tirade about his ex-fiance, actress Naya Rivera, but the more time I spend with the track, the more irresistible I find it. It’s an ultimate kiss-off to Sean’s ex that doubles as a comically outsized way of telling someone they are wack, which I could always use. When a telemarketer calls my cell or a boring PR blast hits my inbox lately, I’ve responded by going hard with this hook. Also, E-40! The Statue of Liberty line in his verse is a bit ugly, but I also couldn’t help but howl. David, I’m pretty sure you’re a bigger Sean fan than Meaghan and me, so how are these tracks sitting with you?
DT: I wear my Big Sean fandom with probably too much pride, so when I saw on a Friday afternoon that four new songs were released and produced by Kanye West, DJ Mustard, Mike WiLL Made It, and Nate Fox (!), I was ready to love them. My initial reaction ended up being a bit muted. Even though Kanye and DJ Mustard are an unstoppable combo with “I Don’t Fuck With You”, the lyrics rubbed me the wrong way. Big Sean’s last album was a goofy break-up record that really was neither petty nor frustrated and was far more understanding to people going in different directions in their lives. Not that all break-ups are going to be the same, but I kind of liked Big Sean more as a soul searching sadsack than one with both middle fingers up in the club. The songs are frustrating, as I cannot deny the quality of the production on all of these tracks—the monstrous gospel of Key Wane on “4th Quarter” in particular—but Big Sean does not carry them enough for me. That slight disappointment doesn’t mean I’m stopping my fandom though, even if I’m as against #biggrande as one can be. #stopbiggrande
MG: As much as it bangs—I love how Kanye fills in the spaces Mustard usually leaves empty in his beats, as counterintuitive as that may seem—I’m never going to be cool with a dude screaming “You lil’ stupid ass bitch!” in such an obviously personal way, no matter how hurt he is. (Though it is pretty funny when Sean huffs, “I got a million trillion things I’d rather fuckin’ do.” You know, like, write a song about how much he’s totally, 100% over it.) Given that, my pick here is “Jit/Juke”. Sean doesn’t always scream his Midwestern pride from the rooftops, but this track has him showing love to the jit, Detroit’s version of footwork that descended from the jitterbug. I really like the juked-out percussion here; even before I noticed that it was co-produced by Nate Fox, my initial impression was, "this sounds like something Chance would rap over." And then the Fall Out Boy interpolation: the type of no-fucks-given dumb fun I can’t help but respect. Wesley, did the “Sugar, We're Goin Down” bit bring back any repressed memories for you? (Personally, I was always more of a New Found Glory type of girl.)
WC: How many chances is hip-hop going to give Fall Out Boy? Kanye remixed “This Ain’t a Scene It’s an Arms Race”, Wayne hopped on “Tiffany Blews” and even 2 Chainz dropped 16 on a FOB comeback single. But I can’t co-sign Sean singing about his “loaded God complex” with a straight face, but he gets some points for having the audacity to try it.
Kendrick Lamar: "i"WC: The polar opposite of Big Sean singing a pop-punk hook is a new Kendrick Lamar song! First we got the striking cover art, and then early this week, the Compton rapper released his first “statement” from his anticipated next album: “i”. The Rahki-produced, Isley Brothers-sampling single got Twitter talking, but I saw reactions run the gamut. I certainly found its overtly positive message surprising, but I’ve only grown to like it more with each listen. Where do you two stand?
MG: It’s easier to form an opinion on “i” now that the initial whiplash has worn off—this is not the track you expect to follow a snarling declaration of being king of both coasts. So, yeah, this song is pretty damn cheesy: somewhere between the Roots, 2013 chart-toppers à la “Get Lucky”, and (I’m sorry!) Shwayze. That doesn’t really bother me, honestly; lest we forget Kendrick’s history of cornball moments (“No Makeup”, anyone?). What rubs me the wrong way here isn’t so much the bucked expectations but the meta-daps the song gives itself upon arrival—namely the intro (included on the Soundcloud version of the track, though it’s omitted from the Spotify and presumably the iTunes version), where it’s announced that this guy stands for something, and isn’t a rapper but a writer! The subtext here is the much-perpetuated myth that most rappers “these days” are just spouting endless money/bitches clichés, and I think Kendrick knows damn well this isn’t true. I mean, even going back to Big Quis—I’d argue that whole tape is just as much an example of radical self-love, it just doesn’t state its own importance so explicitly. I don’t know—I’m fine with Kendrick jumping headfirst into the college-rock, Roots-for-the-2010s phase of his career, if that’s what this means. I just wish he presented it less sanctimoniously.
DT: After being awake long enough to process a new Kendrick single was out there, I frantically texted people about it, and the one that captured the moment was: “KENDRICK NEW NOT DRILL MUSIC.” Even with that initial burst of wonder, my feelings on the song split pretty hard. “i” sounds like “Wake Me Up” and probably will succeed at radio for that reason, but there is little reason to find that particularly exciting. The message of self-love and this kind of calmer side of Kendrick is one that I welcomed with far more open arms than I’d give most artists. I never particularly liked Kendrick’s aggressive persona like on“Backseat Freestyle” and still prefer the paranoia of Section.80 to the cinematic scope of good kid, m.A.A.d city. So, this turn away from both of those sides is chill. I've learned that happiness and peace with one’s self can itself be off-putting, as the initial reaction on Twitter made it sound like he made a Macklemore song. But he’s still Kendrick, the guy who raps better than most, if not all, rappers, who rarely bows down to commercial pressures and is seemingly fine not just giving his fans what they want. Perhaps I drank too much of this based TDE Kool-Aid.
WC: That’s how we know the internet is broken—when expressing personal happiness is off-putting! Valid points all around, but I keep coming back to one of hip-hop’s most beautiful rewards: The sheer confidence it can instill in the listener through example. The Soundcloud version of “i” would be heavy-handed if Kendrick proceeded to only tell us how important and smart he is, but his vague-enough lyrics transcend it to a universal level. For a rapper in Kendrick’s position to take this route—and not deeper down the “Swimming Pools” drain of self-doubt, for example—it’s a G move. The fact that it came from left field maximizes the impact.
MG: I can only hope “i” is getting unofficial Mixdown mascot Wiz Khalifa through this difficult week.
WC: RUN THAT GIF!
