Song of the Day #326 - Tasha the Amazon - Picasso Leaning

I've been on this train for like a week straight

https://soundcloud.com/tashatheamazon/tasha-the-amazon-picasso-leaning-produced-by-bass-and-bakery

Here's some more Canadiana, and another find from this aforementioned article. I felt a little embarrassed that I hadn't heard Toronto's most uniquely popular song despite visiting there ~once a month, but I really have no source of music news that's particularly local. This might be a bad thing. But whatever shame I had on being late to the party is more than cancelled by the insane amount of fun this party is, good lord.

The beat is absolutely gigantic, sounding like a much more professional version of a sound I hadn't even gotten used to the amateur version of. That is, soundcloud producers that are pushing for a niche are so professional these days that their unique innovations could easily be whole movements that I missed out on, and for all I know, they are. The repeated vocal sample is sick in the way it suggests a sort of sugary "shadow" to Tasha's voice without actually stepping on her toes sonically. And then they contrast that with the super distorted sample at e.g. 37s in, a sound I absolutely love, and really setting up this huge multi-level flow that matches perfectly with verse structure. There's really a whole lot to love on this beat, but what amazes me most is how clean and precise it still sounds. I feel like sorting this amount of ideas into something distinguishable is just as hard as having the ideas in the first place, maybe.

And all of this soundtracks one of the most fun druggy songs I've heard in ages. It seems like today a lot of drug-rap has settled in either the territory of prescription-esque summaries of quantities and names, forcing the listener to "do the math", or intentionally vague, focusing only on one aspect of intoxication that could be from many possible substances. Tasha hits a sweet spot here: she isn't shy about naming any particular indulgence, but the focus is still on experiential storytelling. It's really impressive stuff, too... the images she uses, centered around the idea of "Picasso Leaning" - getting so turnt that everything turns a bit cubist - are vivid and poetic without being unrelatable. Then, when she conflates this level of pyschoactive height with her equally lofty rapping accomplishments, you really believe her. God damn what a banger.