REKS - "Impression, Sunrise"

Monet doesn't get a lot of props. At least, not as far as rap music goes: I'm assuming Claude still has a fanbase, somewhere. Impressionism might be an artform as dead as lobotomies, but at least Americans have vaguely heard of it. Few rappers alive today are that lucky.

REKS is a beast from Boston who exemplifies the This Rap Shit Ain't A Talent Show ethos. He's released nine albums now, toured the world, worked with every Great Producer that matters...Rhythmatic Eternal King Supreme has paid some dues. That currency is worth less every year, though.

"Fame" doesn't happen much these days without involving TV show & movie appearances. "Success" is much more attainable, and much weirder, too. REKS shot this video while he was touring Europe, and there are thousands of hip hop heads in Boston who don't even know who REKS is. That's ultimately because talent is no substitute for money.

Being hungry, being driven, being prolific - that's about getting work done, not about getting seen & heard. His latest project was a double album: that shit is two hours long. He's stuck in the same cycle of diminishing returns that currently defines Canibus, who is probably working on a ten thousand bar song right now.

REKS is still very much the same rapper he was when Along Came the Chosen dropped in 2001. Staccato spitfire, lots of internal rhymes, and way more comfortable rapping about rapping than actually speaking on something. Much like Chicago emcee Vakill, he's all intensity and no charisma, all skills and no fun. Seldom do you see a human being behind the Impeccable Realness.

"Impression, Sunshine" is a good example: witness how his dense rabbit-warren rhyme schemes just disappear once it's time to address Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. All of a sudden, dude is just kinda talking. And once politics is out of the way, eight bars later, it's right back to business as usual.

That said, business as usual is a pleasure to listen to. REKS does densely layered rapping about rapping as well as anyone, alive or dead. REKS will abide. REKS will continue to tour Europe, make long-ass albums, and do guest features that destroy motherfuckers on their own damn tracks.

This right here, though? Meh. Beat was the best part.

"It's Time" - DJ SLADEMAN

Watching this was a very strange experience. Mastered to piercing levels that would make chimpanzees recoil in primal fear, the beat kicks in with a sparse and perfectly tuned break -- along with a great horn sample they proceed to never really do much with. British rappers baffle me as much as they entertain me, and sure enough, all I really caught from the first verse was the fact he's happy to just bite Nas outright, like S. Carter casually "quotes" B. Smalls throughout his post-Doubt catalog.

Which is fine: people know what they like because they like what they know. This is all good business.

The hook / chorus is a pop abortion. I can't put it more charitably than that. For the target audience of London rap hooligans and their birds, though, good business. I'm less certain about the economic effects of all those iPad shots -- they could be iconic but they're just corny. Again, this might be a culture gap thing.

Reks kills it, of course Reks kills it. That is why people pay Reks to kill it on their projects, after all.

The cat who comes on after him suffers by comparison, but I also tend to think he would be unimpressive in any context, even a parking lot cipher. His whole gestalt is a lot like Termanology, but with single syllable rhymes and slightly more predictable "punchlines" & "wordplay." These are terms that get abused a lot and I'm part of the problem. Still, dude is a nothingburger, a food additive to justify that crucial third hook. Good business.