Thursday, June 30, 2016

Song of the Day #324 - DJ XO - Off the Lot (ft. Sosamann and Rizzoo)

A hundred thousand million billion rocks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIsdYOCI3Jw

I was reading this article recently, it's pretty cool, really made me realize that I don't actually know much about music, which is always an exciting, if a bit humbling, thing to remember. I didn't like every track I checked out, but I wouldn't have even wanted to. If this truly gives a sense of the "pulse" of a city, of the unique fertility possible in each region, it would honestly be a shame if all of their sounds immediately appealed to a white kid in rural Ontario. At the same time, there are certain regions where, for whatever inexplicable reason, the local sound resonates with me deep and strong. I'll probably never drive something candy-coated really slow while sipping drank down the streets of Houston (probably), but music for just that occasion has somehow imparted that same energy to things like uhh taking a late night bus from a Smash Bros tournament, or sorting my manga collection. Such is the power of this music.

Of the many syrupy facets of Houston hip hop, my favorite is probably the sing-song melodicness to many of their flows. DJ XO brings this to new extremes, feeling like a "modern evolution" of the sound, similar to how we see Atlanta explore the many weird fringes of trap. The style of every line fitting the same melodic and rhythmic structure is supremely hypnotic, especially when glazed in this autotuned effortlessness. There's just enough variation and additions on this simple scheme to keep things hype, though, often hitting that Young Thug-esque feeling of the rapper pushing beyond the beat to satisfy some emotional desire... Sosamann's verse especially, he starts "content" with the established flow, but soon has just too much shit he's got to say, and goes absolutely crazy, with the wild ad-libs leading him in... the way you can hear the rattling chain, it's just too much hahaha, I love it.

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