Song of the Day #279 - Hot Sugar - Blessed (ft. Big Baby Gandhi)

Illuminati on my mind, soul, and credit card

https://hotsugar.bandcamp.com/track/blessed-feat-big-baby-gandhi

Let's try another investigation into the elusive "magic" of yesterday's "Country Report", on an entirely different genre-angle. Basically my strategy here is... there was something to Deakin's song, something indescribable that remained after we'd stripped away everything we could describe, and here's another track that has it too with a bunch of other things that we can determine that it isn't. Coming off his extremely varied but consistently awesome 2013 Made Man EP, Hot Sugar teams up with Queens' hidden treasure Big Baby Gandhi for this song, which is I think maybe perfect.

There's just so much talent on display here! BBG effortlessly flows through a giant verse... he starts with a stunning 34-hit "B" alliteration combo, but makes it feel as if it occurred to him without more than half a thought. From this he veers into political discourse that somehow manages to be fun while also affirming a reasonable progressive perspective, like... "Government or whoever don't want you know nothing" is some form of the truth by way of friendly conversation, while "Occupy Zuccotti Park" reminds us of the real possibility of action, and "Illuminati on my mind, soul, and credit card" is funny but maybe haunting. It's at that point that he really starts to "snap", going into this flow that I really only have known him to do, where it feels like he's getting caught up in the experience he's having, saying and writing those things... like some sort of fervor at his own creativity, it's really powerful stuff. Realest rapper.

And all of it is perfectly matched by Hot Sugar's genius production... man, Idk what I would have swapped for it, but I really wish I could've put God's Hand somewhere on my top 15 last year, Hot Sugar is just sooo good... The beat has this sort of minimal wonky energy where you want to clutch it and shore it onto something more whole and comprehensible, but it defies any sort of normalization in such a compelling way. Everything has this almost abrasive strength to it, scraping the surface of clipping ceilings and other production words I only vaguely know. It feels like some artifact of some impossible past, one that has only survived to the present in its essence.

But for all this that we can even vaguely account for, the real appeal of the song is still beyond. We must pass over it in silence.