“Get Money, Fuck’n Bitches” is old-school Bay Area Mobb Music, the sort of thing E-40 would’ve torn apart once upon a time. “Bring Da City Out” has eerie synth tones that remind me of what DJ Muggs used to do on Cypress Hill records. “Real Nigga Shit” rests on a forbidding, minimal sample of Edwin Starr’s “Easin’ In,” the same song sampled on Ice-T’s “High Rollers” and DMX’s “Crime Story” and Prodigy’s “Mac 10 Handle,” and it’s great to hear those itchy congas again. He sounds cool and dangerous in equal measure.īy that same token, for all its Mustard echoes, the music on Keepin’ It 400 belongs very much to a long-established rap lineage. Rather than growling and roaring and projecting outrage, he comes off calm and relaxed, like he’s thinking about fucking you up but it’s not even that big a deal to him. It’s how he sounds so comfortable, so completely at home, in this vicious world he describes. But like YG, Slim’s greatest strength isn’t his on-paper lyrics he doesn’t say anything particularly worth quoting. As a lyricist, Slim is more interested in time-honored head-busting tricks he spends much of opening track “Real Nigga Shit” describing, in loving detail, exactly how he’s going to murder you. Unlike YG, he’s not that interested in letting us in, in telling the world about his day-to-day frustrations. As a rapper, Slim’s got a more nasal voice, and his delivery is a bit more laconic. And Slim has a plainspoken, conversational snarl in his voice, like YG does. The tracks here are clipped and spacious the lesser-known producers here use a lot of handclaps. But Keepin’ It 400 is a West Coast rap record in 2014, which means it exists in Mustard’s shadow in some important ways.
You never get the sense that these are rejected YG tracks that he threw to his little buddy, or that Slim and YG are in any way inseparable. YG only shows up on one track, and DJ Mustard only contributes one beat. Slim 400 isn’t a Chevy Woods or a Murphy Lee, a rapper entirely defined by his relationship to a more-famous benefactor. Keepin’ It 400 is what solid, durable G-rap can sound like in 2014, the present-day approximation of, say, an MC Eiht or Above The Law album. As a mixtape, it exists in the current moment, a moment when West Coast rap has a sound defined by YG’s frequent collaborator DJ Mustard, but it also has deep roots within California street-rap, roots that pop up above the surface every so often. And Keepin’ It 400, Slim’s own full-length, feels broadcast from the exact same universe as My Krazy Life. One of those random guys is Slim 400, a rapper signed to YG’s Pushaz Ink label. Every guy on the song has a story like that one. YG’s story, about partying and breaking into houses and being betrayed and spending time in prison and apologizing to his mother, is not unique. YG’s album is a sort of every-knucklehead day-in-the-life concept album, and so “When I Was Gone” functions as a sort of pull-the-camera-back moment, almost the way “Compton” did on Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, m.A.A.d. Instead, they’re rapping about how their girlfriends cheated on them when they were in prison, or about how those girlfriends didn’t write them enough letters. And they aren’t rapping about how awesome they are, how they’re taking over the rap game. Other than YG, there’s nobody famous on that song they’re all random Compton guys, guys you assume have known YG forever.
Near the end of YG’s My Krazy Life, easily my favorite rap album of 2014, there’s a posse cut called “When I Was Gone,” and it’s a weird one.
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