Posted on 08/26/2009
The Good Doctor can't help but notice that the rap game has changed:
newcomers like
Cudi and
Drake are putting hits on the board and getting
the Twitterers Twittering with melodic slightly-weirdo largely devoid
of rap, cliche styles that can really only be described as Post-
Kanye
rap. This celery-flavored beverage/music enthusiast is not particularly
mad at this trend. I grew up on
N.W.A. and
Above the Law, but also on
KMD and
Special Ed and (yeah, I'm about to say it) even
Red Head
Kingpin and the FBI, and I've long been a believer that rap is like
food: best tasted in a variety of flavors AND, to belabor the metaphor
further, I believe that much like food, there is good rap and bad rap
of every flavor. Much as there are excellent dollar dumpling joints and
awful $75-a-plate French restaurants, there is great gangster rap and
awful gangster rap, great "hipster rap" and awful hipster rap, etc.
Anyway, this whole thing is just one long digression, a roundabout way
of saying that I'm not mad at these new cats popping up into the game.
Provided, that is, that they're good, which brings me finally to my
point:
Donnis. With this influx of dudes dropping 77 mixtapes digitally
every week, it's getting hard to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
Donnis is one dude who is clearly shining through. He's equal parts
Dungeon Family and
Drake and on his new
Diary of an Atlanta Brave
mixtape (really an album, really, but that's a topic for another time),
he lets loose over well-picked
Justice League beats and you can feel
the thought that went in to the rhymes and hooks. Anyway,
grab the tape
(it's free like all music is these days) and decide for yourself if you
agree with The Good Doctor's assesment.