Mac Miller - Watching Movies (Rostrum, 2013)

When I was in the VICE office last week - a story for another day entirely - we spoke about interviews, and how enthusiasts are the only readers likely to read an interview of an artist they enjoy. I agreed with the sentiment, as I’ve never gone out of my way to read an interview with a musician I didn’t particularly care about, but they brought up their recent Noisey interview with Mac Miller as an example of this. 

Anyone who has followed my opinion on rap over the past four years knows I really don’t care for Mac Miller, and this led to me cringing at the screen, trying to hide my disgust as I gave a quick glance over the interview. I came across a question Drew Millard asked, that of “are there any writers you actively dislike?”, and I expected to see some mention of me. Not because I’m important, but because of how explicitly I attacked his character without a firm grip of who he was. The fact that opinion pieces like mine and others, coupled with things like that Pitchfork review of Blue Slide Park, drove him to drug addiction honestly make me feel a bit guilty. Not much, granted, but enough. Enough to make me read through that entire interview when I got home, and to give his recent material a solid chance.

Mac has changed a lot of people’s minds about his music through some smart associations. Everyone from A$AP Mob, TDE, and Odd Future have recorded songs with him, and the first single from his upcoming album is produced by indie darling Flying Lotus, of all people. It’s not very good. His mixtape, Macadelic, was certainly a step in the right direction, but I still wasn’t convinced Mac is capable of becoming anything more than a barely passable weed rapper. 

“Watching Movies” definitely benefits from a great beat, provided by Sap, who also produced the serene “Thoughts From a Balcony” on Macadelic. Mac addresses his desire to make better music in the lyrics themselves, which is admirable, but wouldn’t account for anything if the effort wasn’t visible on a surface level. It is. Mac has tightened his flow, combining the free association rapping he’s adapted lately with a much more defined sound. It seems like he has almost found himself as a rapper, and more songs like this, less like “S.D.S”, and Mac actually might be onto something.

Might. If Watching Movies With The Sound Off turns out to be one of the better studio rap albums this year, I’ll rightfully take the L, but right now he’s swinging at a 50% hit rate. 

Waka Flocka Flame - Interlude (Mixtape, 2013)

Waka’s career has been in a strange place these last couple years. He tried crossing over with Triple F Life - a move that worked even if none of his own singles charted, as the “Scream & Shout” remix has cemented Flocka’s place amongst the pop world. He appeared on a song with Kaskade and The Cataracs, and now he claims he’s working on an electro album. He’s released a series of mixtapes that are almost indistinguishable from one another since Slim Dunkin passed, and I didn’t have any hopes for Flocka after his recent exodus from Gucci’s Brick Squad.

Yet, here on Flocka’s Duflocka Rant: Halftime Show, he releases arguably one of his most reflective projects, rapping over everything from jazz to The-Dream samples, fully realizing the potential that the Intro and Outro from Triple F Life hinted at. The tape has seemingly dropped with little fanfare - Gucci’s Chief Keef assisted single from Trap House 3 has gotten more attention, and it deserves all its gotten, but Halftime Show is the best thing Flocka’s done since, at least, Lebron Flocka James 3. It’s not a return to form, per se, as it’s more of a dramatic departure from Flocka’s traditional sound. Waka’s flow no longer consists of the primal screams of his last couple tapes - a sound that started off very interesting, but turned into a crutch lately. Instead, Waka reels it in to bring life to the real drama that’s surrounded him this past year and a half, a time which has arguably been the most important transitional period of his career whether it’s been creatively productive or not.

With Halftime Show, it seems that Flocka is finally starting to figure out what he wants to do with the second phase of his career - just in time, considering Flockaveli 2 is still scheduled for release sometime this year. Though some of his hardcore fanbase maybe upset with features from Avery Storm and the absence of the aggro style Flocka popularized, Duflocka Rant: Halftime Show still deserves to be celebrated for Flocka’s return from creative purgatory. 

Waka Flocka Flame (feat. French Montana and Frenchie Montana) - Anything But Broke (Mixtape, 2013)

Last year, after the roughest 12 months of Waka’s career, and presumably one of the hardest years of his life after losing close friend Slim Dunkin, many people assumed Waka had fallen off. His sophomore album, though good, was offset by a number of forced crossover attempts that did nothing to increase his fanbase, only agitating his tried and true fans, the same ones he named a third of the album after. He tried to give back to those same fans with Salute Me Or Shoot Me 4, and even though it didn’t suffer from the problems that Triple F Life did, it also felt incredibly rushed, with most songs sounding almost identical to one another. It didn’t help that Chief Keef emerged from the same gunsmoke that Waka did 3 years earlier, only he brought with him an even more youthful vigor and the murder capitol. Keef was dead-eyed and intimidating upon his initial arrival, almost rendering Flocka’s increasingly cartoonish violence ineffective, and it almost seemed like Waka might sadly move into self parody territory if he kept going down the path he’d set himself on.

Waka wastes no time in 2013 to jump completely out of the slump he found himself in with his best project since the first DuFlocka Rant (10 Toes Down). He is increasingly pissed off, and the light-heartedness that he’s brought to his raps since the mainstream more widely accepted him is all but absent here, with the only real exception being the brilliant, whispered “College Girl.” Maybe the best example of this is on “Anything But Broke,” where Flocka lets loose of a true gem of nihilistic writing.  Gangsta rap has always been a nihilistic genre, but Waka’s chorus takes it a step further here with the line “we gonna fight and fucking shoot until our souls disappear.” The same Waka that was riding a segway in a cowboy hat last year is rapping about his very soul ceasing to exist in 2013, and I couldn’t be any more excited about it.

Du Flocka Rant 2 is exactly what we all needed to kick off this sure to be solemn year.