Loading summary
Transcript118 lines
- [00:00]
Cole Kishna
If you had to pick just one album to define the 21st century so far, what would it be? I'm Cole Kishna from Dissect. And I'm Charles Holmes from the Midnight Boys. And on Tuesday, July 29, Cole and I are launching season four of Last Song Standing. But this year, we're mixing things up. Instead of searching for an artist's greatest song, we're asking an even bigger question. What is the greatest album of the 21st century? So far, we'll be pitting classic albums head to head, debating the best projects from artists like Jay Z, Beyonce, mf, Doom, Radiohead, Daft Punk, Kendrick Sza, and more. Cole and I will argue to the death until we can ultimately agree on the single best album of the past 25 years. The entire fourth season of last Song Standing will publish right here on the Dissect feed. So join us Every Tuesday beginning July 29th. This episode is presented by so Delicious, Dairy Free. We listen to music to free our minds. But are you ready to dairy free your mind? This summer, discover so delicious dairy free frozen desserts with so many next level flavors that are 100% dairy free and unbelievable. Simply creamy. Your taste buds will do a double take as you figure out your ultimate flavor. Is it salted caramel cluster or chocolate cookies and cream? Cookie dough or coconut? Vanilla bean or even mint chip or the classic vanilla? Find out@sodeliciousdairyfree.com welcome, everyone, to a special episode of Dissect. I'm your host, Cole Kushna, and believe it or not, we are over halfway through 2025 already. And so here to talk about our favorite music of the year so far is my favorite music reviewer on YouTube right now, Professor Sky. Sky, thanks for joining us.
- [01:40]
Charles Holmes
Thank you. Yeah, yeah, this is exciting. I love the idea. I was thinking about, like, doing a half year report and I was like, I don't really know. And then you said, I'm like, oh, this would be great. This would be a great way to do it. Kind of be a little dynamic and interact. So, yeah, I'm super happy.
- [01:54]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. So for people that aren't familiar with your channel, do you want to just tell them briefly about what you do on your YouTube channel?
- [02:01]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, so I. I review about three to four new albums a week. That's like the main thing that I do. I started off doing the channel as a way to, like, force myself as I hit middle age to listen to new music, because it was really easy to just think everything stinks now. Everything was good back then. So it kind of, it kind of started that way and when I started it was like very superficial and very sort of quick. But over time I realized, well, I am a professor, I'm a full time professor of French, I have tenure, all that stuff. So I'm like, well, maybe people actually want to hear me talk the way I would talk about this music if people cared what I thought. And ever since then, that's been what I've been doing. I talk mostly about rap music and hip hop. It's. That's like my, one of my areas of scholarship. So it kind of goes pretty nicely with my full time job as well. Also, it's just, it's been the most interesting music for as long as I've been alive. So that's why I like studying it. So, yeah, I think I've listened to enough a dissect to think probably if you like dissect, you'd like my stuff. I mean, that's a silly thing to.
- [03:07]
Cole Kishna
Say about yourself, but I'll say I 100% agree. The approach is. I wouldn't say it's the same, but it's similar. I think we come at it from a similar perspective on, on many levels, I would say in terms of our shared backgrounds and focusing on hip hop, but also being interested in other music. Because you cover, I mean, it's pretty dynamic selection of music that you cover on your channel, which I appreciate. I found. I have found so many new artists and albums through your channel specifically, which is why I had you on for this episode, because you're going to share some stuff. I think a lot of people haven't heard you focus on on big artists like Kendrick, but you also focus on more quote unquote, underground artists that don't have a big audience yet. Which is something I really appreciate, appreciate especially when you're trying to chase like you're playing the YouTube algorithm game and trying to balance that, that, you know, find that balance between commercial appeal and. But staying true to like the roots of specifically hip hop and just great music. So anyone that likes. Yeah, go ahead.
- [04:15]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, I mean that's, that's my, you know, everyone has different forms of privilege. But the fact that I have a job with health insurance means that like I feel it's like my obligation, like, okay, if there's an underground rap album and I know it's going to get 1000 reviews and I could talk about a Drake tweet and he'll get 60,000 views. Okay, I'll do both. I'll just do Both and then we'll see. But that's a luxury not a lot of YouTubers have, so I tried to use it responsibly and I think.
- [04:41]
Cole Kishna
Yeah, I mean, what. What I really appreciate you about your show, which I think is in parallel with mine, is you generally celebrate music. I would say, aside from. Aside from Drake, you. You're a 100 positive pod YouTube channel, which is kind of what I try to do on dissect too, is just celebrate great music and, and try to get to the heart of what makes this great art so great and, and how it can, you know, like all great art can, can move us, can influence our lives, show us different perspectives. And you cover all that on your channel. So very excited to have you here. We're going to share essentially our favorite music of the year so far. This is a favorite conversation, not a best conversation. So it's, it's. I always try to make that disclaimer that this is tough. Yeah, this is, this is not like what I'm saying is the best because that is, you know, I don't like making those kind of grand statements. So this will be our favorite music. We're going to cover a couple of categories. We're going to go share three favorite albums will be the bulk of the conversation, but we're also going to share our favorite songs that are not from our favorite albums. And then we're going to start here today, now with our favorite, what I call underground album, which is just a lesser known artist that. My general kind of categorization of this is like less than a million listeners on Spotify. So, you know, someone that has some prevalence but probably the wider audiences isn't going to be familiar with. I can go ahead and start with my first selection. Sounds good. We're each going to share one in this category. And interesting enough, I know your pick. And I discovered this artist the same way, which is through Kendrick Lamar, ironically. So I'm going to go with Anastasia. The artist's name is Anastasia and her new album Tether. And I discovered Anastasia through Kendrick Lamar's Luther music video. So she's the female lead in the Kendrick Lamar Luther video. And I was like, she was great. She had a captivating presence, very. Just something about her aura. And I was like, who is that? And then I saw something on social media that it was this artist Anastasia. And so I went and checked out her music and her music is gorgeous. Like, absolutely gorgeous. The first thought I had when I heard her was her voice reminded me of Nina Simone and I do not say that lightly. There's a soulfulness and just. She has the baritone similar to Nina Simone, but there's a. There's an emotional resonance that you just hear. She's like, you know, the. A phone book singer. She can sing anything, and it feels like you would feel on some kind of emotional, spiritual level. So she just has one of those voices that is just. Just so captivating, and then she uses it to her advantage. She's a brilliant songwriter, and her arrangements she does so that stylistically, I would say she's kind of toeing the line between folk and a little bit of soul. Her arrangements are very sparse in terms of, you know, usually it's like an acoustic guitar, and it has other natural kind of acoustic elements, like real drums, strings, and so it has this really intimate kind of folksy feel. And. Well, before I get too far, did. Did you get a chance to check her out at all before?
- [08:06]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, yeah, I did. And it's funny because you. You talked about the always positive thing, and that's part of the reason I'm always positive is, you know, when I turned 40, like, before I started this channel, I was like, yeah, new music isn't very good. Whatever. I just listened to whatever I already knew. But then since doing this channel, like, most of my time is just kind of despair because it's like, there's so much great art. I had never heard of Anastasia. I missed whatever article it was that you read about that being the actress in the Luther video. And, like, I heard you. You know, I heard the song because you sent it to me, and I'm just like, this is great. This is amazing. I mean, this is like. Because I review so much new music, part of the saddest thing is realizing, like, if I was just a random person and someone played this for me, and that was the one new thing I heard all year. That would be an album I would listen to all day, every day for, like, three months. And it's. It's amazing that I missed it. I never even heard it, and I listened to this much music. So, yeah, no, I really appreciate it. And especially just the voice. I mean, whenever you can get. I don't know, like, I think of people like. Like Sam Cooke or the Weeknd or whatever. Like, people whose voices, like, they just have some ineffable quality that you just. It doesn't matter what they say. Like, you said a phone book thing. Like, it's just so dynamic and just pulls you in completely. And that's. That's how I was. So. Yeah, I can't wait to play it for everybody.
- [09:27]
Cole Kishna
Yeah, it's. So, yeah. Let's set up the. We're going to each share kind of a one song and a specific excerpt of. Of that song and kind of set it up so provide some context around it. Some. One of my favorite moments on the MUS on this album comes from the second track on the album, which is a song called Villain. From what I can gather, it seems like it's a breakup song. She's positioning what I'm assuming is her. Her ex as kind of like this. This part of herself that she can't get rid of. And so the song is about her, like, asking. So the verse goes, you know, the lyrics are, take it back all that you left within me all the doubt and the lack and that knocking sense of insecurity. And verse two follows the same structure. Take it back all the anger and the fury and I don't know where it hides Just before it rises up and cries for me. So it has this interesting concept of like, yeah, this. This person is still living inside you and it's. It's hard to excavate, you know, and you're kind of asking it to leave. And like a lot of her songs on this project, it starts with just a very intimate setting of just acoustic guitar and her voice, which is beautiful. And then slowly, over the course of the song, it builds and builds and more instruments are added. And the excerpt I'm going to play here is kind of the crescendo of this song. And what she sings here is a continuation of the same framework. Take it back this one life and memory I still hear your voice inside my head say that I'm the villain of the story. And she kind of goes off on this villain motif and kind of just belts out just beautiful culmination of acoustic guitar, drums, bass. And then I think like a French horn. It might be just be one French horn or a French horn section. It just gives it this kind of grand, kind of mat. Majestic, beautiful feel. So let's hear that now. Yeah, so just beautiful, beautiful stuff. I don't know if. Did you have a chance to listen to this track specifically?
- [11:51]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, no, I had a chance to listen to it. And everything that you said like that, that is what I heard. And I wasn't even really listening to the lyrics. I mean, that's a tricky thing sometimes with singers and voices like that, where you just kind of like, okay, I'm transported and I'm sort of on a different planet.
- [12:05]
Cole Kishna
And yeah, ironically, the lyrics are the last thing that I listen to in music. And so I actually didn't know what she was talking about in this song before I even knew I was going to share it. I had to look it up and, and obviously it kind of deepens the connection. But yeah, everyone go check out this, this beautiful album. I think it's an album. The last thing I'll say about it is it's one of those albums. I don't know if you have music like this where like you could put it on. Like if you could just go sit on a park bench and you just put this, this music on in your headphones and it'll, it'll score the world for you in a way that just makes you appreciate the beauty of everyday life. Of. To me, like sometimes with moments like that, like it just, I just get tears about how beautiful things are and how beautiful people are and it really just accents that quality of life for me. So everyone go check out Tether by Anastasia. It's a beautiful project. So moving on to, to your underground pick, what you go with?
- [13:04]
Charles Holmes
I went with Gavara, so that's spelled G H A I S and then Gavara, like Che Guevara. And he, he actually like emailed me a couple years ago about one of his projects and he sort of described himself as like a, like a Marxist underground rapper from Philadelphia. And I was like, you know, I, I don't know how many emails you get. I get a lot of emails from a lot of artists. And that's equally heartbreaking because I'm sure it's all fine but I just can't listen to it all.
- [13:30]
Cole Kishna
Yeah.
- [13:31]
Charles Holmes
But then I got a few people actually suggesting I listen to it and so that was the, the album previous and then this album which I want to make sure I say it properly because it's a complicated album title. Goyard IBN said. IBN S A I D is is as far as I can tell, like the, maybe the full maturation or at least the full maturation of this stage of his art. He. Mostly the way that I described him in my video is as I called him a 63 year old professor of history. He's. He's actually like, I don't know, 20 something. But what I wanted to do with some with my picks is not just talk about stuff that I liked, but also maybe play a little bit of the role of the algorithm. You know, the sort of if you like this, then you like that. I would suspect that there's a lot of a Lot of Billy woods fans amongst. Amongst your listeners. And what Billy woods does is just so unique and amazing. A mixture of being sort of political and personal and so well produced and so well wrapped. It's like, I'm not saying that guys, Kavada is the next Billy woods, but, like, if that's a specific kind of hip hop. If you. If you like feeling like you need to know history better to understand rap music, then. Then he's your guy. But what makes this album fun or, Or, I don't know, dynamically interesting is he goes sort of in between that style of talking, you know, the, The. The album covers, you know, Winslow Homer painting, and he's making all these references to historical events. Then at the same time, we'll talk about trying to, you know, floss and be rich and be on tour and what it's like being a rap star. And. And he's. I love when artists kind of draw that balance where they're not trying to be. I'm not like other rappers, but at the same time, they're not like other rappers. So. Yeah, that's. And this is the. The song that I picked was intentionally one where probably most of you have heard it, because for reasons that I will never understand, like, I truly will never understand why Apple Music chose to put the song that we're going to play as the intro to the super bowl show by Kendrick Lamar. But I thought, well, there's a fair chance that some people heard that and thought it was kind of cool and maybe a little bit better than usual, you know, bumper music. And it's. I don't know. I mean, I guess it had come out like a week before, but it's an independent album, so I don't. I don't. I mean, you have. You probably have some kind of connections. Cole, do you know why they picked that song?
- [15:56]
Cole Kishna
I don't. And I actually D. I DM'd him. Him a few times and I. Because I was asked. I was doing my super bowl video and I was curious how that came about. And he. It doesn't seem like he or he didn't tell me if he did know, but it. It sounded like he didn't even know how they found it. I assumed because of the themes of the song and even the. The title of the song, which is the Old Guard is Dead.
- [16:16]
Charles Holmes
Yeah.
- [16:16]
Cole Kishna
Which plays perfectly into the Kendrick. The themes of Kendrick's show.
- [16:20]
Charles Holmes
Yep.
- [16:21]
Cole Kishna
There's a chance that they. They selected it intentionally. There is also a chance that Apple Music just selected it. I'm not exactly sure. But yeah, this is a. It's a super interesting album. I'll let you set up the song. But to your point, I would, I would second a recommendation in terms of comparison. I hear a lot of Lupe and his approach and lyricism. Again, it's not a. It's not a direct court, you know, it's not a direct one for one. But if I'm looking for an artist that kind of captures what he's doing, I think Lupe is also another adjacent artist. So if you like him, I would definitely check this out. And conceptually, I mean, this, this project, I haven't given it the time that it deserves because I've been. I'm finally out of the Mr. Morale, like haze of the last six months.
- [17:07]
Charles Holmes
It's a long album, that one too.
- [17:11]
Cole Kishna
The thing that, yeah, the thing about studying one album for six months is I don't actually get to spend a lot of time with projects like this that I want to and I, you know, I just don't have the time. But now that I'm out of it, out of it. I'm definitely going to be returning to this more. But from what I understand about the framework of the album is super interesting. It's like this theater play in two acts and the first act is him. It's all about him entering the music industry and drawing comparisons and the trappings of it. And the first half is like kind of his rise and he's rapping more in the. Your kind of prototypical, stereotypical rapper and flossing, as you say. And then the second half, act two, turns a little bit darker and exposes kind of the trappings and the pitfalls of. Of this industry and of fame. And it's all threaded together with these theatrical skits which is, you know, again, if you're a fan of dissect, if you're a fan of Kendrick concept records, I think you're going to be. Be into this album. And I think he's only like 23 or 24 years old, so yeah, he's already making stuff like this. It's. If his debut album is so self aware of. Of the industry that he's now stepping into with the debut album, just. Okay. Like, he's young, he seems very informed and like, I'm just, I'm just ready for him to kind of follow his career for the next decade and see where he takes it. But did you want to set up the Old Guard is Dead A little bit?
- [18:31]
Charles Holmes
Yeah. I mean, I. The last thing I'd say, is that I. In my head, canon. It was Kendrick who picked it, in my opinion. Someone said, hey, listen to this young guy. He's really doing it. Because, I mean, I don't know what Kendrick does all day. I mean, I know he spends a lot of time with his kids and he spends a lot of time rapping and fixing his bikes and stuff, but I. I sort of imagine that he spends a lot of time really thinking about music and. And I could just imagine him hearing this and be like, he produced this himself. It's. He's a Marxist.
- [18:57]
Cole Kishna
Okay.
- [18:57]
Charles Holmes
He's like a young kid kicks, and it's this. Kick ass. Like, I can totally see it.
- [19:02]
Cole Kishna
Also, I didn't point. I should have pointed this out in my video, and I didn't. But. So one piece of evidence that this selection was intentional on Kendrick's part is that it is in the same exact key as the starting song of his performance. And so there's a seamless transition between the old guard is dead and the very first things that you hear in his performance. And so is that a coincidence? I don't, you know, like, it was so smooth and it's literally in the same key.
- [19:32]
Charles Holmes
So, again, yeah, that's why you listen to dissect everybody. So as. As far as setting up this song, I just. I really. I mean, I like this song. The whole album is kind of a theme album, but you don't have to listen to it entirely as a story. So I. I just want to play it just so that you kind of, like nod your head and kind of go, oh, this is awesome. I want to hear more of this. So I think that's. That'll be all my setup.
- [20:18]
Cole Kishna
All right, well, beautiful. We can move on to the next category. So we're going to go with our favorite songs being in the caveat of this category being that they are not from the albums that we're going to choose in a moment here. So I wanted to spread our attention a little bit further than the. You know, I. I'm assuming that a lot of our favorite songs are on of our favorite album. So this gives us a chance to talk about more. We're going to highlight one in detail. One song in detail each, but we're going to kind of name some runners up. So I don't know if you wanted to start with your two runners up and just kind of make the case for them. And also, I should have said this earlier. This will. This episode will have an accompanying playlist. So all the songs that we Talk about and play here on this episode will be on a Spotify playlist. You can find that in the description and on social media. So do you want to start with. How about we go back and forth with our runners up? You can go with your number three.
- [21:11]
Charles Holmes
Yes. Okay, so I think I remember what my number three is. My. My number three is the. The most contentious one. Is that correct?
- [21:18]
Cole Kishna
Yes, it is.
- [21:20]
Charles Holmes
So part of what I'm interested in, it's Peanuts to an Elephant by Lin Manuel Miranda and Lil Wayne.
- [21:29]
C
Go, Dumbo, go. Oh, elephant in the room Came straight out the jungle Got some jungle big face hunters Got elephant booty Not a.
- [21:39]
Charles Holmes
R. I'm not like a Lyn Mo Miranda lover or a hater. I appreciate some of the stuff he does. I think his work in Star wars was interesting. But, like, I wanted to pick this song because it's sort of talking about the way that music criticism works online, and there is a certain degree of sort of group think, and sometimes I get it and sometimes I don't. I mean, like. Like, I made a video criticizing Kendrick for selling his songs to Gatorade, and the amount of anger that I got from that video prompted me to take it down because I'm like, I just don't want to put this much negativity in the world, and it's not worth it to me to be like, get this much grief. So I don't want to do that for something negative.
- [22:22]
C
But.
- [22:23]
Charles Holmes
But I will stand on Peanuts to an Elephant being a great song. And what I love about it is that it's playful, it's fun, it's stupid, and it knows it. And it's like, I don't know Lin Manuel Miranda for all of his flaws. He was doing something interesting with the beat. And what got me the most frustrated in watching the criticisms is most of the time, it would be people just stating the fact that there are elephant sounds in the song.
- [22:50]
Cole Kishna
Right.
- [22:50]
Charles Holmes
They would just say that. They'd be like, there's elephant sounds in the song. And that's my least favorite kind of criticism because it's like, okay, and so what? So. So what if there is? So that's. I mean, I don't know if it's actually one of my six favorite songs of the year, but as far as, like, symbolic songs, to me, like it. And I think what ended up happening was. And we'll probably get into this more as we talk more about some. Some of your picks, because I didn't pay a lot of attention to music between 2004 and 2020, I don't have a nostalgic connection to Lil Wayne. I mean, okay, I saw him in concert in 2000, so I owned the hot boys albums back in the day, but, like, whenever he was at his heyday, I wasn't paying attention. So, like, I just hear this and I think I hear what everyone else heard 15 years ago. I'm like, man, this guy's fun. This guy's creative. This guy's doing stuff other people isn't doing. He's not afraid to make an ass out of himself. So. Yeah. Or a elephant out of himself. So that's why I. I picked that song. And I apologize for the joke and for the. The anger that your. That your podcast is now going to get daring to platform somebody who likes peanuts to an elephant.
- [23:58]
Cole Kishna
I love it. I love it. I'm going to go with. I could have picked any song by J D on this current build up to his album, but I'm going to go with Bo. I think it's called Bo.
- [24:08]
C
You only have one chance. I only got one job to make your head bob and turn up air knob on the speaker to shake a dreadlock. Besides that, I didn't have this inside the headlock. Trying to get paid off and make off like Bernie Madoff Divide that the pie multiply plus divide back RP my.
- [24:25]
Cole Kishna
Guy, you know, also behold is a great song. I could have picked. Yeah. Any song off the EP, any of these singles that he's releasing. J.I.D. is someone, I think, like, like yourself. And a lot of us is like, well, the Forever Story was a brilliant album. I think it showed. It just is a brilliant album. I mean, it shows a range of styles from emotion to braggadocio to just an unmatched kind of lyrical and delivery skill level that I think is approaching the top tier current, you know, best rapper alive categories we'll see with his new album. But the lead up to this new album that comes out on August 8th, he's. He did a. What did he call it? A prequel?
- [25:11]
Charles Holmes
A prelux.
- [25:13]
Cole Kishna
A prelux, yeah. So instead of dropping the extra songs post release, he's doing it before. So we got these four songs on this Pre Lux and then he did a couple other Lucy's freestyles and stuff. And he's just, you know, when you're hearing someone in their prime, this is like, you know, LeBron on second year of the heat or something where he's just like, okay, whatever he's about to come with, if this is a precursor to it, hold like you know, hold on to your hats, because this is. It feels like we're. We're coming up on something very special. And just his delivery is just gotten so, so good. Just so dynamic in the flows. Wordplay is there. It's like everything you'd want in a kind of traditional rapper. He has in spades. So I just wanted to highlight just how mostly how excited I am about his upcoming release. And I know you did. You did a review of the Prelux and were a fan too, right?
- [26:10]
Charles Holmes
Yeah. The funny thing was the song that you picked was not on the version of the Prelux that I listened to, so I had the pleasure of finally listening to that song. I'm weird about album rollouts. Sometimes I listen to the songs they release ahead of time, like the singles, like 50 times. Sometimes I don't listen to them at all. And I'm just like, so excited for this JIT album. And it's a conversation that. That's been going on online. And Read My Soul, who's a really good YouTuber, talks about it a lot. And a lot of people talk about this idea of the missing middle class of rap music. And I think even though Kendrick Lamar is a superstar and Drake is a superstar, I think in the end, when we look back at this moment about the. The shine that the Beef has put on good hip hop, I think the fundamental thing it's going to do is lift the middle class. Like, lift the middle class of. Of rap. And we can see that on our lists. And, you know, seriously, like, everybody who's on our list, who's. Who are rappers, basically, are all in that middle class. Or, you know, so you have guys, Cavada, who's an underground guy, and he's up and coming, but, like, he might get there. And then Jid is releasing this, and people are so excited about a JIT album who's not a household name. And he's also not a guy that only cool people who wear backpacks know. He's right in that zone. And I mean, I. I think he's there. I mean, as far as, like, top. Top rappers alive, I think he's there. I mean, just if for nothing else, these songs mixed in with that crazier song off the Absol album, it's just. It was just too much like, yeah, yeah, these are some good times.
- [27:40]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. So I'll just go back to back because we're cut. It's right in the wheelhouse that I'm about to lay out with my next pick, which is Joey Badasses. The finals trying to outclass a badass.
- [27:52]
C
So I got a dismissal. You all bark no bite for hit dogs going holler caught a couple strays. Now it's time I put them on a collar. I let him ride while I charge them for top dollar. You the next.
- [28:02]
Cole Kishna
Just part of this middle weight class beef, I guess, or battle between Jody Badass and the quote unquote west, mostly Ray Von and Daylight, with a handful of other artists from the west coast jumping in. But those were kind of the two primary targets that ended up coming out of this beef. Was. Was. Was Rayvon and Daylight, but Joey Badass. Like, I don't know. As you say, like the post. The landscape of post Drake Kendrick Battle has been really great. And watching these artists take advantage of the attention on hip hop again and lyricism and bringing the spirit of competition back into the genre, which is part of its traditional. And you have a, you know, let God sort them out has been such a telling and articulate kind of expression of what's going on in hip hop right now where we're seeing this divide occurring in real time. And on one side of it, the side that I enjoy is more traditional artists kind of bringing back hip hop back closer to its roots. And part of that is competition. And part of that was Joey Badass at the beginning of the year just essentially firing at the west and just kind of seeing what happened. And you know, and over time we got some really great tracks, including the finals. The Finals is Joey Badass's response to Ray Vaughan. I could have picked any of Joey's tracks though, from this battle. They are all great. They all. Every single one of them was great. Ray Vaughan had two great tracks that I really enjoyed. I could have picked those, but I just mostly wanted to highlight the battle itself because it was so fun for the. The whatever. It was like a week and some build up before it. It was so fun. These guys were just wrapping their asses off the. They're on time clocks of like, they respond within 24 hours. And it was just like this frenzy for a week, which was just 32 months. Yeah. So I just wanted. Mostly just wanted to highlight that. And you, you did a great job covering the battle as well.
- [30:05]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, I mean, that was really, really nice because it was very clear that it was never going to get violent. And thank God it never did. I was a little uncomfortable with that. I mean. Okay, so first of all, like, because I've studied the Biggie and Tupac thing so much, like, I don't consider that to be related to rap beef. I consider that to be messing around too much with, with gangs. But anyways, who knows? The point is it's all kind of grouped up in my people's minds and certainly people have been physically injured and you know, if. If someone so much as kick someone in the shin in the name of rap battle, I. I don't want it. Right? Like, I don't want to a fist fight. Right. But the fact that it stayed that way, it was just clear that it was people just loving the art and exercising the art and, and testing the limits, seeing how far they could go. I mean, I mean, this song, if you've never heard the finals, just for no other reason, all of these schemes around. How can you rap about dogs while insulting somebody? Yeah, I mean, every time I listen to it, it's not that I hear a new one, but a new one stands out to me. It's just so impressive. And you think like, he can't keep going and he keeps going. It's. It's just really fun.
- [31:11]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. Since he brought it up, I did have some to highlight. So this is aimed at Rayvon, who is on TDE's label and he's kind of the up and coming artist. Dropped a brilliant project that we're going to talk about here in a moment. And so he's playing with this dog motif. To your point. It's like throughout the entire verse. I don't know how many bars this verse is, but it's like he keeps coming back to the dog thing and keeps flipping it in interesting ways. But just to give you a taste of it, he says, what kind of top dog is you? You more of a shih tzu. You was cloned in the lab dog, you artificial. So the word play here is that shih tzu is obviously playing on like shit, piece of shit. And it's a man made dog. So he says, you're cloned in a lab, but lab is also short for Labrador. And then he says, you artificial. Which is again playing on this motif of, you know, being made in a lab. And then he says, you know, you're known for your label not because you're artificial. So he gets a homophone off on artificial and artificial. And then he says, and I ain't got to talk about how broke you are to fix you kind of playing into this the idea that he's an up and coming rapper and he doesn't have money yet. But also fix meaning like fix a dog, neutering a dog, demasculating him. And so it's just like that's just. Again, you can. You can close your eyes and point a finger at any of these lyrics and it's going to be just as dense and fun. And Joey just put on a master class of lyricism and keeping it light, like you said. Like, I don't think any of us were worried this was going to be taken too far. They set those guard rails up from the beginning and just made it about the spirit of competition. It was beautiful to witness. So why don't we move on to your number two? All right.
- [32:53]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, sounds good. Yeah. Also, I would say that the. The thing about this whole year has been so many albums like that where I just want to read all the lyrics because, you know, my videos are. I don't edit them. I just kind of go and I just kind of cut and paste. And there's been so many years, so many times, I just, I just want to talk about. But my second song is Good Credit by Playboy and, and. And Kendrick Lamar. Talking about the numbers is nothing the.
- [33:18]
C
Money is nothing I really be hell my promise they can't even heavy out west and I carry the weight I'm Luka D Chick Conspiracy theories is given but I must admit it, you got the wrong person. They bundling main Chicago slang. Which one of you niggas a merchant?
- [33:30]
Charles Holmes
Merchant? I picked this for a lot of reasons. The main one is that like, when the party is dying and when we're saying it's officially over and bad rap music is going to. Is gone and good rap music is here and Kendrick Lamar is taking us into what, you know, the holy war in the name of hip hop. The fact that one of the first things he did was align himself with one of the absolute most interesting avant garde, forward thinking, brilliant artists in hip hop, who most people who love him despise, was the perfect move. It was like the. The best possible mission statement that, that even though Playboi Carti is a problematic person in his. In his personal life and even though he's affiliated with Drake and he's affiliated with the Weeknd, and he raps about lean and he raps about parties, he raps about guns, he raps about blood, he raps about all that stuff like, the point is not these people bad. It's like the point is we need authentic art made by people that serves people. And that. That mixture to me was so edifying because I've been. I mean, Playboi Carti, before the beef, my most successful video was my Playboi Carti concert review. And I don't think he was at the concert, so it was one of the best shows I've ever seen. And I'm pretty sure he didn't show up because there was all fog and it was just a backing track and it was just some person saying all the way through. But it's one of the best shows I've seen because it was like, in that moment, I went with my teenage son. I'm like, I get it. I understand. You know, it was like that scene, the Blues Brothers, you know, where they're in the church and the light comes in. It was like, I understand young people now because I feel this. So the fact that it was a really good Playboi Carti song, just. And maybe you don't like Playboy Carti, and that's totally fine. Like, I understand why people don't. You know, I mean, I. I get it. But then that it has such a good Kendrick Lamar verse, and then that he is challenging his fans so hard by saying, cardi is my evil twin. Which means. And, you know, you covered this with the Kodak Black thing, which I think is. You know, I think this is a reformulation of the Kodak Black idea. Just like, if you accept me, you have to accept us. And if you don't accept us, I'm going to make you ask why, you know, so.
- [35:53]
Cole Kishna
Right.
- [35:54]
Charles Holmes
Yeah.
- [35:55]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. Beautiful. I. I was surprised to hear him on that song, and I loved it. It was. I mean, it. They have a. I wouldn't say they have chemistry, but it works. I don't know. Like, they obviously. Stylistically, so. So different, but. And to the producer's credit, like, they gave Kendrick a platform with that song because the beat modulates when he comes in, and it kind of transforms into a different track, but. And. But when Cardi comes back in, it's very seamless. And so they bridge the stylistic differences really well with the production, I thought. And, yeah, beautiful points about. About the pairing there. I'm gonna move on to my number one favorite song that is not often my favorite album. And I've gotta go with a song that was not written this year, but was released this year technically. And it is funny. Papers by Mac Miller on the other side. I wonder if you'll take me to.
- [36:54]
C
The other side yeah, what your eyes see 294. And that'll screw you. Still b it all on the glory hallelujah.
- [37:03]
Cole Kishna
So this song, I want to try to talk about this without tearing up, because it is one of those songs for me, that is just like. It is so beautiful. And obviously, there's the posthumous kind of element to it all, especially with this album, and all the eerie connections to him talking about death. But beyond that, this song transcends that. That dynamic. It's just a beautiful, gorgeous, heartfelt song. I was absolutely floored when I first heard this song. Like, how do you have. How are you just sitting on an album this good and a song this good that you just choose not to release it in your lifetime? You know, like, he just moved on to other projects. Like, what? This is, like, one of the best songs I've ever heard. It's so beautiful. Yeah. So it's just to set it up thematically, it seems like. I want to say it's inspired by the Beatles, A Day in the Life, because the premise of the song is Mac Miller reading the funny papers, reading the newspapers and reading about tragic things that's happening in the world and kind of finding the beauty and the tragedy in the everyday, which mirrors A Day in the Life. If you know that song off the Beatles, sergeant Pepper, which is one of Mac Miller's favorite albums of all time. And if you listen to Balloon, it is. It is. John Lennon influence is all over this thing. And they even. He even closes with the song was. And the. The last song on that album is also a callback to a sergeant Pepper song. I'm. I'm blanking on it now. But anyway, so it's just. It's so endearing. There's this, like, dreamy piano. It has a really sweet intro where he's just talking. He just says, did no one ever teach you to dance? There's only so much time and, you know, just kind of talking about the, you know, the limits of life and the finite element of life. Each verse starts with this idea of, yeah, somebody died today. I saw his picture in the funny papers. Didn't think anybody died on the Friday. A line that is all the more haunting knowing that he himself passed on a Friday. But it's just. Before I get too far into it, I mean, I'm curious to know your thoughts. You did a beautiful review on this album on an artist I. I think you said you weren't totally familiar with. Right. In Mac Miller's discography.
- [39:22]
Charles Holmes
Yeah. So even before I started the channel, I have a really good friend from Pittsburgh, and his teenage daughter was, like, really thought it was really cool that I knew about rap music, because her dad didn't. And she was like, you have to understand, Mac Miller is the future of rap. And he is out of Pittsburgh and he's the greatest. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. And she played a little bit. I'm like, white guy, huh? So that, that was my, that was my initial take and so I didn't think about it much until I started the channel. And then, and then he died right around the time that I started or he didn't release like a major album or when I got started, I was just a total mess. So like I've come late to it and it's been really fun because it's kind of like the Lil Wayne thing, but sort of in reverse where I feel like people who love Lil Wayne love him increasingly less and people who loved Mac Miller love him increasingly more. And, and getting to listen to that project is exactly like you said, just like it. It's an amazing album. I'm really happy that he released it when he did because if it was one of his back catalog, I wouldn't have had a chance to really spend some time with it. I mean, just the way that it's like kind of a Thundercat album, like featuring Mac Miller. That's really cool. And the, the Beatles reference, I think it was Tomorrow Never knows or Tomorrow yeah, yeah, yeah, some kind of reference there. Like, I would then go on to watch his interviews and I was trying to understand like, how did this well adjusted, middle class white guy make it in rap? And it's just the same way that, that most people will make it in hip hop if they are not, you know, from, from the people from whom the art springs. If they're just respectful, if they are honest and if they're just like who they are. And if who they are gels with what people want to hear, then you're all set. You don't even have to try. You get to just be yourself and it'll work out for you. And Mac Miller just, I mean, having it be A Day in the Life, which is, I mean, that's short selling what is probably the greatest song ever written. But what's great is that it's calling back to it. But it's also like what's great about A Day in the Life is just how two headed it is. It's just this happy song and this sad song and it's this like lackadaisical attitude towards death and it's so serious and it can make you cry and it can make you laugh and you never want to skip the part with Paul in the middle, but you're always tempted to. But that's totally needed for it. Yeah. So I. I was very happy to get a chance to revisit the song for this. This podcast.
- [41:50]
Cole Kishna
Yeah, it's a beautiful song. I'm sure everyone's heard it here. That's listening, but I'll put it on the playlist. But I'm curious to know. Very curious about your top song because it is from an artist I have. I just have no context for.
- [42:03]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, so I. I just thought it would be fun to. It's sort of another. Another underground. I don't know how many Spotify listeners they have. They're called Hessa Castle. H E S S E K A S S E L they are Chilean. I've never been to Chile. My former boss was from Chile, but that's about it. I've read a little bit of Neruda. I don't know if I've seen any Chilean movies. I don't think I know any other Chilean music, but because I've done a lot of work in the sort of post punk scene, especially the post punk scene in England, I just get a lot of people who contact me saying, like, hey, check this out. This is like that. So this is like, I'm sort of trying to challenge people whenever I can to disrupt English linguistic hegemony. So it is a fact that if you are born with the ability to speak English, you have a privilege which is akin. Not the same, but akin to a privilege of gender or mean sex or. Or race or nationality. Like, you are given a kind of gift by the world, by the nature of your birth, that you have all this access to power, all this access to culture. And when artists who are in another country, in another language fight against that, I feel like it's maybe our responsibility to give them extra attention and really try to see, like, why, you know, I love that that punk is one of my favorite groups of all time. But it'll never not bother me that they had to go into English. They had to kind of bow down to English linguistic hegemony. I am a French professor, by the way. That's part of the reason I'm so obsessed. They closed my French program, which is why I had so much time to do these videos. So I'm not even like a Spanish expert or anything. I have intermediate Spanish. But, like, if you like Black Country, New Road, if you like Black midi, if you like Viagra Boys, if you like, I don't know, television, if you like Talking Heads, I don't know, like, if you like post punk music, like, really Good rock and roll with like very high talented, you know, very talented musicians playing music that has that looseness, you know. Post punk is my favorite genre of rock music because it. It has a lot of the energy of punk, but there's like a kind of stylistic freedom and you never quite know which way it's going to be different than just regular rock or just regular punk. So I. I picked this song because it's just. It's a 10 minute song. It's like a whole opus. I don't think we're going to be able to listen to listen to the whole thing here today. It's called postpart, which means postpartum. And I don't really understand all the lyrics. It's like, I don't know, there's. There's a part of me that really loves music made by young people who are in that stage of life that are just like, nothing makes sense. I don't know what I'm doing. The world is sending me all these messages and I don't know how to decode them. I'm just going to throw them into some lyrics and say them with like kind of a cool scowl and have the music behind. So, yes, I'm trying to play you some music from there where you just get this feel. And my hope is that you hear it and you go, you know, I should check that out. And then.
- [45:30]
Cole Kishna
Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, exactly what this episode's for. So.
- [45:34]
Charles Holmes
Oh, good.
- [45:35]
Cole Kishna
I'm looking forward to spend. Yeah, I mean, looking forward to spend more time with them. I didn't have too much of a chance to listen to anything other than the highlight song that you did, but it's definitely on my list. But. But yeah, let's go into our favorite three albums of the year now though. I think we have the same number three, so we can probably just. And I think we have the same focus song, which is Ray Vaughan's the Good, the Bad and the Dollar Menu.
- [46:00]
Charles Holmes
Yes.
- [46:01]
Cole Kishna
So this album, I was absolutely floored with this album when I heard it. Rayvon is someone that obviously got signed to tde. I want to say he got signed like during the Pandemic. And so somewhere around then I was introduced to him by that signing. But also a number of freestyles he did that kind of went viral. He's a brilliant freestyle rapper, like one of the best I've seen. And so I had my eye on him, you know, these last couple of years he's dropped some singles here and there that were good, were fine, but didn't quite Deliver in the way that I thought he was capable of. And then he drops his album. The Good, the Bad, the dollar Menu. And it was a total left turn from everything I was. Was expecting from him because it is a incredibly vulnerable story of his life and his upbringing. Because if you, if you just know him from his freestyles and his singles, it seems like he's just a kind of a wordplay guy. Lots of energy, gonna make bangers. And, and that, that seemed to be the route he was going, which would have been great. But this album is one of the most vulnerable projects I've heard in recent memory. It's. It was. I was just not ready for the level of vulnerability that it, it expresses. We'll talk about our highlight song here in a second, but I've just open it up for your general thoughts on the album.
- [47:23]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, I mean, I, I wanted this. So, like, I've had a couple, a couple of thoughts that have been going on. One is that, like, we might be entering a time where the mixtape is better than the album because, yeah, we.
- [47:33]
Cole Kishna
Should say this is a mixtape, quote, unquote.
- [47:35]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, it's, it's a mixtape, but it's a mixtape. The same way that Alligator Bites Never Heal by Doji is a mixtape. And again, it's that kind of sense of freedom. You know, the, the. I actually mentioned this on the last guest appearance I did, but there's the, the famous bit where Peter Griffin is about to die and they say, do you have any last words? And he says, I didn't like the Godfather and they say, why didn't you like it? He keeps going. It insists upon itself. And it's like the full albums, like really, like you have to have some grand statement in. You have to make some sort. And that can be good, but it can be heavy. So, like, to have a mixtape that is this good and truly this heavy while at the same time having the lightness of a mixtape. And it's also just when I'm thinking about like record labels and what they do. We are living in a time in like a 12 month span or I don't know, maybe 16 month. I don't know exactly. But within the last two years we've had Absolute Schoolboy, Q, Dochi, Rayvon SZA, and I still count Kendrick as part of TDE, even though he's his own thing. Because, come on, you know, like, like there is a lot of praise for Top Dog. There is nowhere near enough that like, something is going on. Like, like, I don't, I don't think it's even like Def Jam. I mean, I remember Def Jam in the old days, and they had a lot more misses than this. And they had a lot more. You know, to me, it's more like Stacks Records or something, you know, just like. Like, how do you keep doing? But yeah, so, and. And this is just another one of those where you're just like, how is it possible that they were able to. To curate and grow and find the right producers, the right songs for this guy, help this guy find his voice and make it. And that's part of the reason that I love that you picked the finals by Joey Badass. Because it's almost like. It's like he's kind of right. Like, Rayvon without Top Dog might not be anything. But the cool thing is, do you know who else says that? Ray Vaughan says that without Top Dog, he wouldn't be anything.
- [49:30]
Cole Kishna
Yeah, they're one of the rare artists that, you know, anyone they sign, it's like you. It's. It's automatic. You got their eyes, your eyes on them. And I'm, you know, I don't know if you've checked out their latest signing, Alameda, which is a female, like, rock singer. Almost like she does. She kind of toes the line between, like, post pop punk and R B in a very interesting way. Everything she's released so far is really good. And she hasn't released her debut project yet, but it seems like they did it again in a totally different area. And so. Yeah, part of this. Yeah, part of the. Yeah, to your point, like, we did a whole TDE draft a couple months ago where me and Curtis King and King Green kind of celebrated the label and just drafted our favorite songs over the years because they seem to be in this middle of this. I mean, it seems like they've been in a peak for the last decade. Like they're point to any year in the last decade. And they had some kind of impactful release and all culminating into this tour between SZA and. And Kendrick this year and Dochi winning a Grammy. And this, this album is just like the run continues, man. But put. Put the focus back on, on this album. Let's. Let's. Let's set up the. Our shared favorite song. I was so glad to see that you picked the same one because it's such a standout track if. And it'll give listeners a taste of the kind of vulnerability we're talking about. It's a song called Flat Shasta Truth.
- [50:56]
C
Is mama, you need meds for skitso but you won't take it. If you lose all your marbles, you ain't gonna have nothing to play with. A black woman who crosses crying for help, and I'm trying to save her. The last thing you want to be called in this world is crazy. I'll. Poor baby. I just.
- [51:09]
Cole Kishna
It's about his. Rayvon's mother, and it goes into her struggling with schizophrenia. It goes into her. Her kind of the way that Rayvon was raised by her. But it also shows, like, grace and forgiveness for her, for his mother in a very beautiful way. The. The analogy of the song Flat Shasta playing on, you know, the. The kind of. The fizz of a soda diminishing as a. As a metaphor for his mom and struggles with schizophrenia is just such a potent analogy. It's such a beautiful and vulnerable song. I don't know what you had to say about it, but I also wanted to raise the question of. It feels like we are just in a new. Like, the vulnerability in hip hop in the past handful of years. I feel like we're just even. We see it in the. In the Clips, the new Clips album. Yeah, I feel like we have just. We are more vulnerable and deeper than ever before in the genre. Is that your sense too?
- [52:09]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, I mean, it's. You know, I always sort of do a little motion with my hands where I talk about the emotional range of hip hop. And I teach a class on hip hop and I go back to the 70s up through now, and I try to help them see when we hit different. When the emotional range of hip hop grows. And at this point, the hands are just totally open. I mean, it. This song, I mean, it's particularly wild for me because, you know, my parents were cannabis addicts and, And. And alcoholics. And like, my dad was one of the smartest people on earth. Like, when they. When they knew him as a kid, he was like little Orson Welles. He was like a little genius. And for the entire time that I knew him, he was Flat Shasta. I mean, he was still very smart, all that stuff, but, like, that metaphor is so universal. If you've ever loved somebody who is losing a battle with mental health, losing a battle with substance abuse, you know, like, it's such an amazing metaphor because then it also ties into the food desert that he lives in, which is the larger theme of the album, which ties into the socioeconomic realities, which ties into the systemic racism. Like, all of it ties in together just. Just to this, like. Like one song. And like you said, it's just unbelievably vulnerable. And the grace that he shows her is so enormous. It's so like, he's so harsh and so graceful all at the same time. Yeah, what a song.
- [53:32]
Cole Kishna
Yeah, it's so beautiful. And there's songs. I think this is kind of the. The pinnacle of. Of vulnerability on the album, but it's not like this is the only song I. I want to. I want to say the majority of the songs on this album are in this vein are at a level of vulnerability. There's not a lot of bangers, quote unquote, on the record. There's a few here and there, but for the most part, I mean, it's just a deeply personal album that kind of takes you through the early days of his life. And it does have like, a storyline of like him wanting to rob houses and try to go that way and kind of kind of this overarching thing where he discovers music and finds a different path and ties into all the themes that you just laid out beautifully there. So if anyone, this was my favorite project of the year for a long time, just. Just until recently. So if you haven't heard this project, go listen to it in full. It is. It'll floor you. Especially from a new artist with a debut, quote, unquote mixtape. It only makes me wonder what the. What the album is actually going to sound like because he put. I think a part of this was like he's putting pressure on himself to even do. Do even better on the next one. Right.
- [54:39]
Charles Holmes
Which is what Dochi did as well. It's like, oh, my God, they must be. Can I do another one of those, please? Do I have to do something better than that?
- [54:46]
Cole Kishna
I know it's crazy, but. Yeah. Your point about the freedom of both of these projects and just taking the weight off that debut project off of both of their shoulders seem to pay dividends. So let's go to number two. I'll throw it to you for your number two album of the year so far.
- [55:06]
Charles Holmes
Yeah. So this, this one took me a while to really figure out the Is trying to. Black Country New Road is like, if you don't know the post punk scene in. In England, they're sort of the. The big. They're sort of the, I don't know, Rolling Stones of that scene or Led Zeppelin scene. They're sort of the. The, I mean, relatively big docs, right? Because they're not. They're not household names, but they've had this amazing run where they are like, they had this lead singer and he was Just really charismatic. He's a lot like the guy from Hesse Castle. So he's kind of a, you know, self hating young man, you know, which is a great, a great position to be in as a musician. And then they released their, their second album, Ants from Up There, which was my favorite album of that year. It's probably top three albums that I've reviewed in the last six years. I mean, just an absolute, absolute masterpiece. And it was. He left the band before they even released the album. So they recorded the album and then he left the band. And so it was this really weird thing where we have like this whole thing happening where in England and in a lot of Europe and you know, a lot of the world you have music schools where you train people how to play music. And usually people who are trained musicians, they don't do things that are that interesting because they're too busy thinking what they can do if they should do it. So Black Country New Road's always been a great example of like really technically gifted musicians who have this really great perspective because this lead singer was this fascinating guy who knew how to write great lyrics and it all kind of gelled together. And then he left and I was like, what are you supposed to do? Like, what do you. Like, what can you possibly do when the voice of your band leaves? And so they did this thing where they just said, all right, well, we have three female singers, we have three male members and three female members left. All three female members can sing. So they're all just going to write the songs and, and they, they wrote these songs. The album's basically roughly divided up between the three of them. And the expectations I had were so high because their last album was, was a masterpiece. But then like, it's a totally different band, even if it's six of the seven same members, you know, like if, if. I don't know if, if Pete Townsend left the who and the next who album was as good as the last who album, it wouldn't make any sense, you know, and, and that's what they managed to do. And they did it in this way where it's all the same stuff that you might like about their music. Very epic, lots of time, signature changes, not too many, but lots of that, lots of that kind of technical stuff which, which is enjoyable. But then the themes of the album are largely about being a young woman. A lot of the same kinds of themes of like, self hat a woman's perspective, which is interesting for me to hear. Like, oh, when you're in your early 20s. You just watch too many YouTube videos and fall asleep, you know, thinking you're a loser, you know. Oh, this is great.
- [58:08]
Cole Kishna
Yeah.
- [58:08]
Charles Holmes
And it's about, like, friendship and love and. And what they do better than almost any other band is have just so much sound and so many interesting little moments that you glom onto later. I mean, you know, I. Season 70 of Dissect. You'll probably end up doing one of their albums, but. But like, just these little tiny moments. So I tried to pick one of those moments from one of the songs, but every song has one of these moments where it's just this little beautiful segue. It kind of opens up and it has this movement to it and this grace and. Yeah, it's. It's a really great album.
- [59:00]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. All right. Beautiful. So, yeah, go check out that project if you haven't already. I'm gonna move on to my number two, which I don't. Actually. I forgot to update you on this, but I didn't think maybe you needed it because I'm gonna go with the album that just came out at the time of recording this. It is clips. Let God sort him out. Yeah, this album is fucking fantastic. Like, I did a whole episode that by the time this comes out, you can go listen to that and talk. Me and Charles talk about it for over an hour. So I'll keep it kind of brief here. And you. I watched your review. Great review. I think you're just as excited as I am about this project. It's hard to know where to start because it is so brilliant. It is so great. It is everything we wanted from them and more. They pulled off the 15 year comeback. It doesn't feel nostalgic, drenched in nostalgia. It feels fresh. It feels everything we love about clips, but updated and more mature and more reflective and, you know, they've lived life and they have something to say, but they're also giving us the classic everything we love about them. Pharrell's still producing some of the best beats in the world. It is the perfect length in 13 tracks and 40 minutes. It is. It is everything I wanted from. From this group specifically. It is. Everything that I love about hip hop is on display on this album. I mean, God, it's so good.
- [60:16]
Charles Holmes
It's so good. Yeah, that's. That's what's funny. My. I did a. I think an hour and 15 minute review myself, and I. I started it off by just quoting the Wu Tang Clan skit. You know, what do you want to hear? Oh, you know what I want to hear. Right. That new Clips joint again, again and again. Because, like, it's all. I mean, I feel bad because I'm. I'm now reviewing the Open Mic Eagle album and that's an amazing album. I mean, that might be a top five album of the year as well. But the Clips album is so intoxicating and so addictive and like every single beat is good. Every single verse is good. Like every line.
- [60:50]
Cole Kishna
Like every line.
- [60:52]
Charles Holmes
Exactly. It's not even that there's no skips. It's that you can't even picture a world in which you would want to skip. It's that.
- [60:58]
Cole Kishna
Right?
- [60:59]
Charles Holmes
And like you said, the. I love this movement of albums that are not 22 songs long. If for no other reason than being a music reviewer. When you're like, okay, I'm going to be a son of a.
- [61:11]
Cole Kishna
About. Yeah.
- [61:12]
Charles Holmes
Yep. Everything you said about. But I'm curious. What. What song did you pick?
- [61:16]
Cole Kishna
Right now I'm picking Mike Tyson Blow to the Face.
- [61:19]
C
If you don't test them ain't your unless you joystick and dress them My presence your pleasure peasants he's pressure I've been needy Key deep we in ZZ me and Lily get you fronted for the summer so easy the snow alone Fill up a mobile home My nigga's name ring Likes mobile phones and no one's home white back to back rolls.
- [61:39]
Cole Kishna
At my gates it was the my favorite on first listen. I think it's still my favorite. I mean so be. It is so good though too. I mean that first run of songs, the first six tracks, is just flawless. But Mike Tyson Blow to the Face is so unique in like both starting acapella and then the momentum or just ups a notch when the beat actually does kick in. And like these guys are just, just every. Like what I said in the episode is like you. You put a blindfold on point at any lyric and it's just going to be great. It's every. And the economy of words is something I'm really starting to appreciate with them. They just don't say anything. They don't need to. It's like, great. That's what you do when you're trying to be a great writer is you don't. You don't. There's no extra words. And that allows their clarity and the articulation of every line to be so crystal clear in a way that I think is unprecedented and unmatched in hip hop is just the clarity of both of these guys. Delivery is so immaculate and it has one of My favorite mal. It might be my favorite verse or at least my favorite sequence of lines on the album. Malice, the run where he says, you n words. As screenwriters, we dream writers took change and touch change. Like King Midas. Imitation is flattery. They seem to like us. But only 300 bricks can make you Leonidas. King Midas and Leonidas. Like, what are we doing here? It's so good. It's so good. And then, I mean, even the way he ends the verse D class in my ears. Now. Let me see you bite it. She want Mike Tyson blow to the face. I'm talking 96 HOV with the bass. Come on. It's so good.
- [63:16]
Charles Holmes
I love the economy of words thing. Now you've done it. So now I'm gonna have to try to find when Hemingway talks about the way that he writes and see if it can be applied.
- [63:25]
Cole Kishna
I'm.
- [63:26]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, I don't know if we should work together, Cole, because it's gonna. It's gonna give me too many ideas to go down. I get that. Okay. How Hemingway ish is Pusha T. This is actually a good idea.
- [63:40]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. Okay. So I don't know if you had anything else. You said everything you probably wanted to say about clips in your review, so maybe it's just a plug to go watch your great review of it because it was brilliant.
- [63:52]
Charles Holmes
Or just listen to the album twice, you know?
- [63:54]
Cole Kishna
Right.
- [63:54]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, either one.
- [63:56]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. Okay. So that brings us to your number one album of the year so far.
- [64:02]
Charles Holmes
Yeah. So I was tempted not to. Okay. So I. I chose bad bunny. Debbie. 10 year tener mas. My Spanish is not very good, so if you speak Spanish, I apologize for at least one word wrong there. But this was, like, maybe the first album I reviewed of the year. It was in January, and kind of goes back to my thing about linguistic hegemony, but also kind of like cultural hegemony. And what I'm really fascinated by is, like, what hip hop does. Now, Bad Bunny is not technically a hip hop artist, right. He's. He calls himself, you know, sometimes a kind of Latin trap thing, sometimes that's thrown around. But, like, I'm fascinated by the idea that hip hop was like. It's that I give a definition on my channel. It is a art created for and by black Americans to express the black American experience. That's its first definition. Then the second definition, I say, is a tool created by black Americans that people can use the world over as the voice of the voiceless. So, like, to me, what Bad Bunny does is exactly what all Good international hip hop or rap does. It just takes those tools. It takes that accessibility, it takes that directness, it takes that wordiness, and it uses it to express something really real. And this album is like. I mean, okay, it does insist on itself quite a bit because it has a theme, but it's like. It is like, you know, like Renaissance by Beyonce. It has that level of just, like, scope and thought. And it's a lot about living in Puerto Rico and how things are changing. And there's a whole song about how they don't want Puerto Rico to become like Hawaii. And it's all in Spanish. And he's so badass. Bad Bunny is so badass. He's not even touring in America. He's like the number two or number three, most streamed artist in the world. And he's like, yeah, I don't know, I toured there last time. And how many millions of dollars is he leaving on the table to make a point? And what's the point? He's playing in Puerto Rico, he's playing there. And I'm going to pronounce it properly and improperly. Alternatively, feel free to get mad at my stupid gringo ass saying it both ways. But like. So this album, it's like. I've always liked the reggaeton sound. I find it a little bit annoying that it's the same dumbo beat over and over again. This is not that it's got a great mixture. In my review, it is a little bit of a bloated album. So I. I picked out nine songs to really focus on. But the song that I picked, Baye Innovidable, Unforgettable Dance. Like, I picked it. And it's one of the big hits off the album, but it just does everything that this album does really well. So it's. It's a great song that's a great pop hit that you want to sing to that the first time you. By the time you hear the chorus or that you hear the hook, you sing it the second time, and then by the time it rolls around on the third time, you're begging for it. But the thing he did was the musicians are just some kids. They're just kids from San Juan who are in, like a music school and they're making this music and it has this immediate feel. And he's connecting to his parents and his grandparents, and he's making music for people his age and younger. It's this multi generational love letter to Puerto Rico, to the immigrant experience, to the difficulty of living in a place which is and is not a country at the same time, that is invaded and colonized at the same time. That it's not like all these things happening with this amazing through line of. I should have taken more photos. Recognizing that something is lost. And the album cover is just too empty. Like cheap poolside chairs or so. Like plastic chairs. And you get the sense that there used to be people in there. And it fills you the sense of. Of reminiscence and loss. And it's so full and it's so beautiful and it's so danceable. And it's the, eh, eh guy. You know, for 20 years we've been hearing the same guy just saying something, something in Spanish, eh, eh. And it's like when you really slow down, you listen to it. It's. It's just like, who knew that pop music could be this good and this powerful from somebody who is, like, kind of hip hop adjacent, you know, Like. Like, in my review, I said, this is what Drake should be doing. He should understand he has a voice. He is speaking for people who aren't spoken for. He needs to stop trying to be a dude from Houston and start being the dude he is and use his power for good and not just to.
- [68:50]
Cole Kishna
Yeah.
- [68:50]
Charles Holmes
So anyways, I went on too much, but that's. That. That's.
- [68:53]
Cole Kishna
No, that's beautiful.
- [68:54]
Charles Holmes
Why I chose it.
- [68:55]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. And your review really helped open up this album for me because I'm not as familiar with Bad Bunny as I should be. I actually, I wanted to ask you about this album specifically. Do you. Because I'm just kind of listening in passing to his past work, and this was the first album that I really, especially after your review, was like, really try to sit with and understand is this album. Do you get the sense that it's. Is it somewhat of a departure for him or a culmination of, like, maturation, or is it in line with it?
- [69:23]
Charles Holmes
It feels like it. Yeah. It feels like a culmination because Unano Sinti was like, also an amazing album that was super well made. I don't think it was quite the level of achievement as this was. But also, I'm not like a Bad Bunny expert either. I mean, I mean, to. To be very clear, like, I don't. I don't listen to that much. I don't listen that much music in Spanish. I listen a lot of music in English, a lot of music in French. But there was something about this that just was so clear, really monumental and. And amazing. So, yeah, as. As far as it seems to Me, that is a logical growth. And it's just so funny because the image that you have of Bad Bunny, you know, like, maybe you saw him on Saturday Night Live and you had kind of funny hair and, like, I don't know, like. Like, music is great because it forces you to take people seriously who you might be tempted for a series of reasons to just ignore. And that's why I really wanted to pick it, just. Just in case you're out there. And because it's going to win all the Grammys, too. It's gonna. I mean, I. I think it's. If. If Kendrick doesn't sweep, I think Bad Bunny is going to sweep because it's just that good of an album, so you can listen to it before it gets too NPR'd up, you know.
- [70:29]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. And if anyone wants an entry point that maybe has struggled to get into his music, I think starting with your review is a great place to start, because the way that you break it down specifically for people like me and you, at one point, it sounded like you create the entryway. You kind of open up some of the barriers, cultural barriers that we just are implicit in our culture. If you were raised a certain way in a certain part of the country, like, everything you're saying in that, in your Bad Venue videos, I'm like, fuck, he's talking about me.
- [71:01]
Charles Holmes
But that's the point. I think you should leave line. Not everybody knows everything. That's what's beautiful. Everyone is so afraid of apologizing and of being ignorant. And it's like, there's so much to know in the world. Like, just be ignorant and then learn. And then if you can share what you've learned with someone else who's ignorant.
- [71:18]
Cole Kishna
Exactly. Okay. Beautiful. And I will just say, like, after returning to. There's some albums that I. I just know are good. I had a similar experience with Rosalia's album Motomami last couple. Whenever that came out a couple years ago, where I listened to it once because people were giving it glowing reviews, didn't quite get it. And then like a month or two later, or even maybe even more than that, I put it back on. I was like, it just. Suddenly it clicked. And that became, I think it was my second favorite album of the. That year. And so just something clicked after I returned to it, where, whatever it was. And recently for this exercise, I returned to this album knowing it was your number one. I rewatched your review and it started to click. Like, the first half of the album was like, okay, I. I actually I am starting to understand the brilliance. I'm kind of seeing the nuances that you helped point out for me and then understanding the backstory of some of the themes that I don't understand because I don't speak Spanish. Having those in mind, I was like. It started to click. I found the entry point, and I'm really looking forward to keep. Keep listening to it from this point on. So.
- [72:25]
Charles Holmes
And as a final note on it, I think what's fun is us, you know, as, you know, a couple of. Of guys who listen to a lot of music that doesn't come from our lived experience, like, it. It's really okay for it not to be yours, you know, like that. That's one thing about. About being a white guy who listens to a lot of hip hop, you know, And I always said I'm just a tourist. It's not mine. I observe it no more than 17th century French literature. French culture is mine. Is hip hop mine? It's just something I can observe and love. And that's what I like about music in other cultures is you are forced in that position completely. You can't even pretend because there's not even a shared language. But anyways, I know we're running long here.
- [73:05]
Cole Kishna
Yeah, no. So. My number one album of the year, this took me by surprise. It is Lord's Virgin. I have. I've loved Lord for a long time. Melodrama, I think, is a perfect pop album. It is one of my favorite records of all time. It is an incredible album. Her first album's incredible Solar power wasn't quite for me, but I appreciated the departure and the experimentation. Especially someone that. That came into music and the industry so young to depart and experiment on that level. I thought I appreciated it, even if it wasn't precisely for me. But there is a return to. I don't know, it's not even a return to form. There's a Lord's Virgin is more in the melodrama vein, but it is a. There's a maturity and a growth in perspective on this record and an experimentation of that sound, that pop, electronic sound, to the point where, like, I kept thinking, like, brutalist architecture was like, the only thing I could compare it to because it is. I don't know, there's like. It's super angular. The production is, like, harsh, but, like, pleasant and catchy, but distorted. And it's this just beautiful mix of things. And it's an album. I think that if you aren't maybe used to some of these sounds, you might need to take a couple of listens to get into, but I swear it will grow on you if it didn't stick out right away for you or didn't resonate right away. And there's the subject matter of this is just talk about vulnerability seems to be a theme in this episode. And, man, this is legitimately one of the most vulnerable records I have ever heard. The album cover is an X ray of her midsection or vagina. And that is the perfect encapsulation of what is going on on this record because we are seeing every single part of her, every single part of her struggle. She is so honest in this record in a way that especially like a woman in her kind of approaching her 30s, I think is where she's at. And some of the questions I remember having about just identity and what it means to be an adult and especially someone without kids, like, what does that mean? What is kind of this quarter life? I wouldn't say crisis in her in her case, but it's definitely like some kind of transformation, which I think is alluded to in the album title, Virgin, which I didn't know. I mean, you're very much into words, but I didn't know Virgin originally didn't have really have to do with sexuality. It was more a word used for just a woman that was independent and associated with virgin goddesses. And so. And she talked a lot about some of the mythology and the Greek inspiration of this album, and even Melodrama was inspired by some. Some Greek plays. But anyways, so there's this whole Rebirth thing. It is a breakup album, but it's also like. Like in your review, there's a. You pointed out the parallel between this breakup with this guy that was much older than her, but. And was also connected to the music industry. And so there's this like, duality and parallelism of. Of. Of breakup with the industry and with this guy that seemed to be. Maybe. I wouldn't. I'm definitely not saying abusive, but maybe the relationship dynamics were not as healthy as they needed to be. And yeah, before I. I'm about to do a whole dissect episode on this, but let me stop myself because I know you enjoyed this album. So what were your just kind of general thoughts on it? I have some. Some. Some more specific things to go into, but curious to know.
- [76:49]
Charles Holmes
I. I love you dropping the. The etymology, if. If you like the origin of words. I spend way too much time. I don't know why I didn't think to look up Virgin. So I. I appreciate that I'll have to. Have to. Have to look at that later. Yeah, no, I. So, like, like, when you're a music youtuber, you get like, different audiences and different niches who don't watch all of your stuff. They just watch part of your stuff. So I basically have like three or four. And there's the, you know, there's the rap and there's the, The.
- [77:18]
Cole Kishna
The.
- [77:19]
Charles Holmes
The post punk. There's sort of trans music, and then there's like the pop sphere, usually what I call pop in divas, like indie divas. And like, those fans are just huge. And they're so into it, and they're so into people talking about it. So I was getting pestered forever about covering Lord, and then Solar Power came out and I liked it. It. But then all of her fans that were telling me to listen to it forever were kind of like, yeah, I know. This really wasn't the one. God damn, I wish you Melodrama. When. So I went back and I reviewed Melodrama as well, and. And again, so. Because I don't have that connection, I thought of her like, I didn't like Royals. I thought it was, like, weird and patronizing, and I was just like, who is this, like, new, like, Kiwi teenager, like, insulting black American culture's influence on. You know? So I just, I just. I mean, I like the Weird Al song, but that was about it. And. And so to me, this is by far my favorite Lord project. I just. I love listening to it. And I feel like. Like I want to throw around the word vulnerable as well, but I think it's more than that. And I think this goes to the clips thing as well. I think what we're seeing is, like, emotional honesty mixed with intellectual depth. Like, there's that. That mixture of them. Because, like, it's one thing to say, like, I feel bad and like, that's vulnerable, but, like, there's. I mean, and that's across all the projects that we've been talking about, like, the Rayvon, the Bad Bunny, the Lord, you know, like, there's really. And the clips, you know, we really do. It's not just vulnerable. It is like this deeply honest and intelligent way of expressing emotions. I don't know, maybe it's just because young people these days go to more therapy. I don't know. It's.
- [78:58]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. The articulation of that that you're saying on this record specifically is so brutal sometimes, man. It's just like, it hits you the way she's able to express certain things about Body dysmorphia about identity, about love and loneliness and horniness. As you point out in your review, it is that classic post, the free. The sexual freedom of a post breakup, but it also the lonelies. She really dovetails that or accentuates that dichotomy of loneliness and freedom post breakup so beautifully. So let me focus in on what I want to kind of break down off the album because it's a really cool detail that is confirmed by Lord herself, is not just one of my crazy theories I'm going to add. So the play, the song I'm going to add is Shapeshifter. I think that's my favorite song so far on the album. It's a beautiful song. It's really interesting production wise. But the dissectable kind of moment that I want to highlight is the start and end of this album. So obviously there's this kind of umbrella idea of virgin, there's this idea of rebirth and purity associated with virgin. And water is obviously like a traditional symbolism of the same thing of purity, rebirth, cleansing, spirit purity, all that. And so it seems like she was inspired. Like a lot of this album was written in New York and she would go to Washington Square park every day and visit that fountain and kind of the famous fountain in that park. And she said that she deliberately started and ended the album at the park, she said in an Instagram post. And the way that she does this is really cool. So there's what I'm calling a quote unquote digital fountain. There's a the way. So the very opening song, Hammer starts with this kind of like womp, womp, womp sound. And they kind of have these like weird sparkling kind of crystal sounds in the background. This is what she was alluding to when she says starting and ending at the fountain. So. So you hear it in Hammer. We'll play the clip now and just remember this reverberating kind of. She called it an icy, ripping tremolo sound that starts at the park. And it seems like it's a representation of this fountain which ties into all these themes about virginity and purity and rebirth. And then in the opening song, Hammer, she says, the mist from the fountain is kissing my neck, the liquid crystal in my grip. So she even plants the idea of a fountain in the lyrics and it's sonically represented by this kind of sonic motif. And then at the very end of the album, on the last song, David, that same icy digital fountain sound returns, but it returns in this huge, epic, grand, climactic way. It's the pinnacle of the entire album. This emotional crux of the entire album where she screams, sing, kind of sing, screams. This, this line, I don't belong to anyone. And she lets out this like, kind of ooh, ooh, ooh, ah, ah, ah. I'm not going to try to recreate it here. Yeah. And it. But it's just like this crescendo. And you pointed out, and we have the same thought that. That the lyric should be I don't belong to anyone but you. Because if you listen to the scheme, when you listen to the song, you'll notice that it should run. That line is actually being set up to say but you.
- [82:46]
Charles Holmes
Because she omits it for it's. Why do we choose the people that we do?
- [82:50]
Cole Kishna
And then that line, I don't belong to anyone but you. But she omits to you but you. Because this is her liberating spirit. This is her moment of kind of transcendent independence. And that same fountains. That same fountain sound returns now in a climactic form. And it's just like it. The combination of David as a whole, which is a beautiful. Like one of the best songs on the album. That moment where it, like the, the. What is it? The side chain compression of that moment where it's essentially this. This kind of compression that overpowers everything else in this. In the. In the mix. So her voice actually cuts in and out in sync with that tremolo. And so it's like. I don't know, it just feels like this literal moment of transformation. And then it tapers down beautifully after this climax. And then it's just like this, this. This calm piano and she just sings over and over, am I ever going to love again? So it expresses this dichotomy of I'm free, I'm liberated, but I'm also now questioning. There's a loneliness and I'm now questioning am I going to love again? Which is just. It's such a gut punch. It's such a beautiful way to end this album. The full circle moment. And if you listen closely in the background of that, those last few seconds of the album, she says, am I ever gonna love again? But in the background she doubles with an ad lib that says, tell it to the rock doves, sing it to the fountain. And so rock doves are slang for pigeons. And so it's again depicting her at the fountain, you know, telling her story to the rock dove, to the pigeons. It's just. I mean, it speaks to the level of detail. This album was created With. She has all this kind of cool, motivic, structural stuff in all of her work. Work melodrama especially has a lot of this kind of narrative threads tying through it. But I had to just call that. That moment out and it's confirmed by her, you know, her. And so I wanted to highlight that kind of just. Just the level of thought. And again, this is, you know, much like TDE artists. Like, she doesn't release a lot of music, but every time she does, every four or five years, you can expect quality. I think her. Her discography is immaculate. And I'm. Yeah, I'm seeing her live in a couple months with my daughter. I'm really looking forward to that. Yeah. So, I don't know, it feels like it's been a pretty good year in music. What is your general sense? We'll leave it with this one. What are you looking forward to in the latter half of the year? What releases and artists are you looking forward to? And just general perception of the year so far in music.
- [85:47]
Charles Holmes
Well, it's strange because last year was so exciting with the Kendrick and Drake beef. And part of what made it so crazy was it's the only time in my lifetime that the biggest story in American culture was music, not movies or TV or politics, you know, like, so it's hard to kind of come down from that. So, yeah, I think. I mean, and I also. I reserve the right to change my. Change my favorite albums. So it may actually be that clips might be my favorite album of the year, I'm thinking. So. So when it comes time to December, I realize. Who knows? But, yeah, I mean, I think I'm probably most excited for Jid. I. I think Kendrick is coming out with his actual album. I think the GNX is going to be a mixtape, and I think he's going to come out with his actual album. I think he's waiting till his tour is over. I think he's waiting to do it. Whatever. He always knows when to do it. The exact right point. He usually does it for holidays, so. So maybe Thanksgiving. Who knows what. But like. So I'm excited for that because I think that's happening. But then, like, all the mix, you know, like, is Dochi going to come out with a full album? And I hope so, and I hope not, and all that. That's. I think that's. But. But I'd say Jid is what I'm just most excited for because that's like, it's on. It's sort of like the clips was. It's like, it's on the. It's on the calendar, and my expectations are ridiculously high. And more than that, I'm confident that my expectations will be met and probably surpassed, just like I was with Eclipse, which is a wild thing to say.
- [87:18]
Cole Kishna
Yeah, I'm right in line. JIT is number one, my most anticipated album. And everything that we talked about earlier with the lead up, it seems like we're gonna get something really great, and I feel like it could be his time, you know? Yeah, I don't. I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know, like, what. What his goal, his ambitions are. I don't know if he wants to have the smash single. Like, does he want to be that artist? I'm not sure. Yeah, it doesn't seem like he's chasing it, but I'm very interested to see where. Where he's going next with it, so. But, yeah, thanks for coming on the show, man. This is. This has been great. And if. Yeah, if you guys aren't familiar with professor sky already, definitely go check out his YouTube. I'll leave it link in the description, and we'll have to do something else soon.
- [88:00]
Charles Holmes
Yeah, yeah, probably Hemingway and Push up.
- [88:05]
Cole Kishna
Yeah. Awesome, man. I'll talk to you soon.
- [88:07]
Charles Holmes
All right, great.