Welcome to Mixdown, an ongoing series where Pitchfork contributors talk about mixtapes and mixes that may not be covered in our reviews section but are worth discussing. Today, we're ruminating on Justin Bieber (again), talking about Young Thug's new mixtape with Bloody Jay and a new release from Tink, and looking at the state of Young Money.
Corban Goble: This is a black day for Beliebers. However, it only strengthens my faith. Jesus himself would have been destroyed by the 24-hour news cycle. Fittingly, the passage where Jesus drove his Lambo into a ditch has been excised from most major texts.
Carrie Battan: A black day? In the long run it’ll probably wind up being a great day for Bieber, who’s just gotten that much closer to adulthood and a sustainable career as a teeny-bopper-turned-grownup. I’ve also been thinking all day that if I were Bieber I’d be doing stuff like drunk drag-racing in Miami, too. I wonder if he is in therapy. Carrie Battan: supporter of misconduct (in the long run).
Are either of you guys current on the status of Bieber’s relationship with Lil Twist? They were estranged the last I checked in. It would be a really good look for all parties if Lil Twist got Bieber to contribute to the new Young Money compilation. What am I saying? If Drake got Bieber to contribute to the new Young Money compilation.
CG: I haven't heard much about the Bieber-Twist bromance lately. But in those Instagram videos Biebz posted yesterday, he's hooping with Mack Maine. So, seems like it’s not impossible!
CB: The first single from that compilation “We Alright”: really not bad! The new Young Money signee, Euro—who evidently lives in Providence, Rhode Island—sounds like a baby Drake without the singing.
JS: The hottest rapper in the game right now is named Young Thug, so I guess I shouldn’t ask how someone named Euro gets a lead single with Lil Wayne and Birdman, but: How does someone named Euro get a lead single with Lil Wayne and Birdman?
CB: Technically it's €uro.
CG: Jordan, Y. U. Mad? My question is, between “We Alright” and YG’s “My Nigga” remix—is Wayne back?
JS: Initially I didn’t listen to this track because I literally thought it was some European guy rapping. What it actually is isn’t any better though—I'm not sure we really need another Young Money compilation. Didn’t we just have one like three months ago? On the other hand, it probably means more Nicki, and everyone is dying for more Nicki right now.
CB: And everyone is dying to finally hear Drake’s “Trophies”, which is on the compilation (such a slap in the face to Young Money from Drake considering he put it on OVO's soundcloud weeks ago).
Young Thug and Bloody Jay: Black Portland
CB: Back to what you said about rappers with bad names: There’s a new Young Thug mixtape with Bloody Jay, a guy who was not previously on my radar but made a really good first impression here—he makes the first reference to R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series I've ever heard on a song. Young Thug is not as spastic and through-the-roof excited as he usually is, but I'm fine with it because you can hear the nuances of his rapping without the shock value of his crazy voice. He still sounds interesting.
CG: But then a song like ”Florida Water” approaches 1017 Thug levels of alien.
Question: What is the rationale behind the name Black Portland?
CB: That’s what I was going to ask you sports writers...
JS: Truly the most important question in America right now. I like this tape, obviously. Push comes to shove, I’d prefer an IV drip of pure Young Thug, but this is good enough. Bloody Jay doesn’t have the pop instincts or the manic delivery of Thug, but I totally get how some people might want a counterpoint.
Still, the best stuff here is from Thug, mainly the hook of “4 Eva Bloody.” He has these tracks—“Who’s on Top,” and “I Know Ya” are good examples—where it sounds like he’s recording on a rollercoaster or something. Or maybe that’s what it feels like to listen to Thug’s best stuff: Even after you’ve heard a track a dozen times, you still get the thrill of him whipping his flow around or stepping on the gas pedal has he launches into a chorus. What an original.
CG: How would you describe Young Thug and Bloody Jay in Portland Blazers terms? For Thug, I was thinking like Dame Lillard deceptiveness spliced with Robin Lopez’s more surrealist imagination, but I’m open to something involving Meyers Leonard as well.
JS: Young Thug is totally the delirious headrush of Lillard and Wes Matthews making a combined 12 three-pointers during a nationally televised home game. Bloody Jay is probably Leonard? Wild young buck who might not amount to a consistent player but still could fly off the rails at any point in time. Corban, should we alienate every single one of our readers by figuring out who is the rapper version of Thomas Robinson?
CG: Thomas himself is a huge fan of Shy Glizzy. Is it Shy Glizzy?
JS: I think he’s Wale before the career renaissance, but we should just move on for a number of reasons.
Tink: Winter's Diary 2
CB: Last time Tink was on Mixdown, we weren’t all that kind to her—I thought her last mixtape was dull and she didn’t really merit any attention. She can seem like she's trying too hard to prove herself as a lyricist, almost to an Angel Haze degree. So I was happy to love Winter’s Diary 2, which is almost strictly R&B. Tink is a great singer. If this were 2001, a song like “Dirty Slang” would maybe be a single on major-label and it’d get a “TRL”-grade video. (I keep waiting for Drake to show up on this mixtape in the male guest parts; maybe that’s because Tink shares some of her sound with Jhené Aiko.)
CG: I also thought of Angel Haze—Winter’s Diary 2 seems to be a way more honest record than the overreaching Dirty Gold. Her last mixtape didn’t do much for me either, so I appreciate the fact that she’s trying something different on Winter’s Diary 2, something that probably plays to her strengths more than Boss Up. I also like that she's loosening up in general and not building off whatever drill-related hype new Chicago rappers are subjected to. I didn’t like Winter’s Diary 2 as much as you did—a lot of the hooks didn’t stick to me—but she's going in a better direction.
JS: I think she has a bit of a richer voice than Cassie derivatives like Aiko. The two songs I really love on this are “Treat Me Like Somebody” and “2 and 2”, both of which are these little acoustic tracks. They showcase her voice more than any of the others and it’s a bit of a different sound than you hear from most underground R&B artists right now. “2 and 2” especially shows off what she can do with her voice, both in the way she hits notes and in how she plays around with phrasing. Personally, I wouldn’t mind her going full R&B, but there’s something exciting in what happens when she fuses the two. I guess that Angel Haze album is the storm cloud hovering in the distance, though.
CB: I heard you can make that cloud go away by standing in front of a mirror and chanting Broke With Expensive Taste three times in a row.