Harley Geffner be smoking that Obama Kush.
OMB Peezy – In the Meantime
Having grown up in public housing in Mobile, Alabama, then moving to Sacramento with stints in a homeless shelter, you’d think OMB Peezy would be elated by his recent career success. But that’s not how he sees it. Though he’s proud to have the money to give his grandma some for her Bingo games, the spoils of his labor have meant more enemies, fake friends, and complicated situations arising.
On his new EP, In The Meantime, he takes us on a vivid trip through the struggle days wherein he had to rob and his shooters knew what a wink meant. But those struggles didn’t end with the rap money coming in. He still feels unsafe walking around without a firearm and he questions whether he had it better when he was sleeping on the floor. Peezy’s nasally vocals come from the Boosie playbook, and he has the storytelling to match. The way his downtrodden vocals wind through the sun-kissed piano lines gives the tape a sense of existential dread that can’t be articulated by lyrics. It’s the inevitability of sin, the feeling of everything we love disintegrating around us though it’s still a beautiful day and the leaves are rustling in the wind. It’s a type of calmness that arises from accepting a sort of fatalism that Peezy settles in.
1020 Meezy – “Mob Ties”
The chorus of Mob Ties is one of those that’ll latch on to the inner channels of your brain and refuse to let go. It’s soulful in the way that it will make you miss literally anything. I hate Jack Ellis for showing me this song because it has taken over my life this week, despite being more than a year old. “Mob Ties, this what you look like in God eyes” pops up every 30 minutes, forcing me to replay it. It interrupts me listening to new albums that I’ll have to stop midway through to run it. I sat down to read a book and the word “God” appeared five pages in, which immediately made me bookmark the page to go straight to YouTube for 4 minutes. Be careful with this song.
Capalow – “Drip”
“Drip” is exactly the type of track that needs to be heard belted in unison. It’s about cat-calling which we at POW can not condone, but I’d be lying if I were to claim it’s not satisfying to yell AYE AYE along with East Oakland’s Capolow. The track has been buzzing for a minute on the West Coast. I’ve heard it blasted from cars multiple times in South LA over the past few months. I hope it has the staying power so we can all be hitting little 2-steps to it once house parties become a thing again.
Hotboii – “Don’t Need Time”
The lead single from Hotboii’s excellent new tape Kut Da Fan On is a beautiful tribute to a lost friend. Over mournful piano with his distinctly Haitian-Floridian accent, Hotboii processes his grief in real time, knowing that his boy Wolph made it to heaven and wishing he could call him up to tell him how it’s going. Hotboii is a natural vocal stylist, and his delivery can be equal parts percussively clipped as it is hovering like a piano foot pedal drawing his notes out. The album is fantastic, but this funeral procession truly moved me to the verge of tears that it had to be singled out.
Trapland Pat – “Vent To Me”
I don’t know anything about Trapland Pat other than that he’s also Haitian and from Florida and that this song off his new Interstate Baby tape is wildly hot. It’s ominous as hell and makes me feel like I’m in Speed Racer. Just run it, and when you’re done, run the fast version, which is even better.
