Curren$y & Jet Life – Red Eye Mixtape
Self-released: 2013
Unlike way too many other rappers to bother mentioning here, Curren$y, (and by extension the rest of his Jet Life crew), has actually benefited from his relative stylistic immobility and dogged adherence to a particular lane. Similar lack of progressiveness has been a detriment to the careers of others, (witness the critical cooling on Jet homie Big K.R.I.T.), but not Spitta; he’s generally just too adept at what he does.
He knows his arena so well that he can make something that should really be mundane glorious, and knows how to subtly tweak his sound from album to album without ever jarring his audience. All of this is interesting because his latest release, the aptly named Red Eye Mixtape, doesn’t play it quite as safe. It wouldn’t feel right by any means to call it adventurous, but beat-wise it’s content to play around and try on a few more different styles than you might expect.
That isn’t such a surprise though; this is a Jet Life crew tape, not a Curren$y one, and as such the stakes are pretty low; it’s been released as part of a free Bit Torrent bundle and seems in no small part to be motivated by promo concerns for an upcoming tour featuring a handful of Jet alumni. As such, it’s breezy, contented, and playful, mostly maintaining the vibe of a chilled and friendly shit talking session amongst friends. Some of the guys definitely put their work in, but there’s an overall easiness to the tape that is both a blessing and a curse.
Those low-stakes might also explain Curren$y’s below-par showing; he’s dependable enough to not drop any duds, but during the few times he drops by on Red Eye his flow is less intricate and quotable than on most of his solo LPs. Mostly, he lets his effortless N’awlins drawl and the beats do the heavy lifting, (as on the lyrically repetitive but booming late highlight “I Can’t Stop”). Surprisingly, and maybe even intentionally on Spitta’s part, it’s the lesser known rappers here that wind up shining the most.
The star of the tape is without question Fiend. Here he confidently continues his late career renaissance, instigated by 2011’s Tennis Shoes and Tuxedos and maintained by this year’s Lil Ghetto Boy. Whether playing the smooth baritone lover on the album’s best track, (the stupid-mellow opener “California Mornings”), marshaling his No Limit roar for “On My Job”, or playing the wizened street vet on “Crawfish”, he’s easily the most commanding presence here. On a basic level he’s just such a fun and versatile vocalist to listen to; when he’s at his coolest, wittiest or most poignant, it only adds to it.
Everyone should already have known that Fiend could rap though; a pleasant surprise is the showing from the Jet players further down the hierarchy. Young Roddy has, for a while, been steadily improving, successfully developing his once meat-and-potato bars into something much better, richer in detail and, most notably, brief flourishes of real emotion depth. His showings on “Grizzly” and, in particular, his bassy, dark solo cut “I Kno What I’m Doin’”, attest to a great deal of improvement and, presumably, a lot of grind. Likewise, the once consistently bland Cornerboy P shows a similarly marked improvement on his small handful of showings here.
Back to those beats; like much of the rapping, they rarely sink below a certain level, but don’t consistently hit high peaks. They do at times, though, and predictably things gel the most when the Jet crew stay in their lane. Thelonious Martin provides some wispy, pillow soft beats that are easily among the mixtape’s best on “Crawfish” and the aforementioned “California Mornings”. Meanwhile, on “Grizzly” and “Showroom 2”, Curren$y and Young Roddy flow effortlessly over funk that is both light and muscular.
The experiments aren’t bad, but they don’t fit quite as naturally, and despite their general decency seem a little like throwaways in the context of patently well-executed Jet shit. Some work perfectly, like the fascinating, dark crawl of Mary Gold featuring “Prayer”. Some, however, are more likely to be acquired tastes, like the brassy, so-dumb-its-fun Deelow and Cornerboy cut “She Got It Too” and Young Roddy’s stomping “I Kno What I’m Doin’”.
They don’t feel like missteps though, given the fact that the tape doesn’t sound very carefully considered. It’s at once a strength and a weakness. No fan would have objected to a well-oiled, Pilot Talk level opus, but they would have been naïve to expect it. And for anyone who likes this sort of thing, 13 tracks of well-intentioned, well-executed, and thoroughly blunted hip-hop is nothing to sniff at, even if it is a little throwaway.
3 out of 5