Waka Flocka Flame – Flockaveli
Asylum Records: 2010
Oprah was right. Hip hop culture sorta glorifies gun violence and misogyny. Whether or not there is a message attached to the macabre imagery we’ve put forth over twenty-plus years of gangsta rap records, John Singleton flicks, hood novels, and Hype Williams videos, the fact remains that listeners and viewers exist who are ill equipped to process this imagery in a healthy way, that have essentially been raised on the stuff, and that have modeled their lives after the ill-fated characters they look up to. In our quest for “realness” and “self-expression” we have inadvertently created a generation that revels in the very behavior we thought we were railing against. They’re finally here, and Waka Flocka Flame is their spokesperson. Flocka is hip hop’s Beloved, the sins of the game made flesh, back to wreak havoc on the industry.
Flockaveli is more foolish and morally reprehensible perhaps than anything to come out of hip hop in 2010, a year dominated by characters like drug dealer superhero Rick Ross, mush-mouthed murderer Gucci Mane, death penalty candidate Lil Boosie, and Clifford “Three Strikes” Harris. In a scene populated by incorrigible repeat felons and their admirers, Waka Flocka has somehow managed to distinguish himself as the gooniest of all goon rappers. “Bang” features a chorus of “We in this bitch throwin’ gang signs, mang!” On “TTG (Trained to Go)”, pills and weed have got him “higher than Bobby Brown.” He takes time out of his smash single “O Let’s Do It” to let us know that he’s “got purp, got kush, got pills, got white.” Flocka has delivered seventeen tracks worth of drug dealer sloganeering almost entirely comprised of goofball adlibs and soullessly basic lyricism.
Calling this album a lyrical train wreck of epic proportions is so beside the point, though. Waka aspires to rhyme the way he does. Asked about the lyrical content of his songs, he recently quipped, “I don’t need lyrics.” Flockaveli isn’t about lyrics anymore than it’s about its purported star, who only goes solo for four of the album’s seventeen joints, bolstered otherwise by nearly thirty guest appearances. It’s dumb-dumb shit by intention. It might not even be fair to call it a rap album. This is performance art. Flocka’s a rap Gallagher. You think anyone goes to a Gallagher show for witty political commentary? Nah, they just like when he smashes shit. Waka does this in spades on Flockaveli, and it’s no mistake that hip hop’s premier fight music maestros Lex Luger, Drumma Boy, Southside, and more have laced him with the hardest shit in their arsenal.
Sonically, Flockaveli crushes. Lex Luger, of “BMF” and “MC Hammer” fame, provides most of the beats here, and his work is admittedly the reason the album goes down as smoothly as it even does. He opens the album with a streak of bangers that are every bit as massive, uncompromising, and outrageous as the dude riding shotgun. Southside and Tay Beatz smack one outta the park in “Fuck the Club Up”, whose druggy, airy synths fit the theme like a glove. These beats are the weed carrier’s answer to punk rock. These songs are the toughest things currently playing on the radio, and the production team here deserves credit. They’ve provided the perfect platform for Flocka and his goons to run a train on what’s left of hip hop’s dignity. They’ve single-handedly proven that the lyrics don’t matter if the track rattles trunks, which is pretty much the lesson of Flockaveli, maybe even of 2010 in general.
Now don’t get it twisted. This album is pretty short on redeeming qualities. It’s injurious to the public profile of hip hop and the black community at large, nay, all of mankind, for a character like Flocka to be corrupting the airwaves with this abject buffoonery. Flockaveli is the new American encyclopedia of ignorant gangsta tropes and negative black stereotypes. It’s hip hop’s proverbial chickens coming home to roost, but rather than waste any more time and energy condemning the guy and what he does, we need to figure out what makes this guy so magnetic, why this album bangs so hard in the near absence of anything resembling lyrics. If you can stand to wade through this bucket of sludge, underneath the muck and the mire, you’ll find one of the year’s greatest unintentional comedy albums.
PS. The night before I wrote this I pounded a bunch of beers and sloshed through torrential downpour, bumping the album pretty much end to end. I decided that in a weird way I like it. A lot. I hate myself for listening to this as much as I do, but it makes a kind of demented sense when, and perhaps only when, you’re irrationally and unexpectedly tipsy. That said, I can’t in good faith recommend this record to anyone with a pulse, even if I’ve made it my official drunken hype music. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I might have coerced someone into experiencing this. I just couldn’t.
PSS. Don’t tell nobody I told you that.
2.5 out of 5
