6lack

One Liner: Atlanta rapper and crooner who I like despite my pre-conceptions

Wikipedia Genre: R&B, hip hop
Home: Atlanta

Poster Position: brand new addition to the lineup!
Weekend One Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts: I have literally never understood how to say the name of this gentleman.  I know that makes me an old person, but in my mind it was pronounced like "slack," which makes zero sense at all.  So then my brain would say "sixlack," like a super-powerful version of Ex-Lax.  Which also makes no sense.  Now I see that it is just said as "black," which is deeply disappointing.  It's like a guy who tricked the DMV into issuing him a license plate that says P3NIS because he thought it would be hilarious and now he's divorced and into My Little Pony cosplay.

Real name is Ricardo Valdez Valentine Jr.  Which is a dope name.  he was born in Baltimore but raised in Atlanta, where he started battle rapping when he was in middle school.  He dropped out of Valdosta State University to sign with Flo Rida's label and try his hand at full time music.  he apparently slept in the studio or on the street while he worked on his music, but before releasing anything with that label he left to join the Spillage Village, which has the Earthgang guys and JID (who I dig).

Several of this guy's top tracks are with someone else - Khalid, Normani, something called Lil Tjay, J. Cole - so it is honestly not that easy to know what he sounds like on those, because I can't tell the difference between Lil TJay and this guy when they rap.  So I skipped the top tracks and went straight to the albums.

2016's FREE 6LACK was his first album, and I'm surprisingly kind of in to it.  I don't know why I was instantly geared up to thing this was going to be bad, but I've enjoyed some of these tracks.  Three have over 100 million streams, but one of them is the standout for sure, "PRBLMS" with 384 million streams, which went platinum after release.

Beat is basic, but it has an ominous feel to it that matches well to the laconic flow that he is throwing on there.  And also, lyrically, I dig it.  No bragging about his cars and money, just telling the ladyfriend why she's a pain in his ass.  It's like Ice T's "99 Problems," but instead of a long list, he's just concentrating on a few of them and slowly considering them while he eats Xanax.  I definitely prefer the straight raps over the R&B stuff, which are anodyne and unremarkable part of this hour long album, but I'm actually enjoying the album overall.

Then in 2018 he released East Atlanta Love Letter, which again boasts three songs with over a hundred million streams, but then one bigger hit.  This one features J Cole.  "Pretty Little Fears, with 316.9 million streams.

I feel guilty for years of J Cole slander.  I blame Shea Serrano.  Cole has some bars, and I like the halting way that he does this cameo within the beat, and his lyrics are lovely.  Pretty tune overall.  He also goes in to some AutoTune on here, which is disappointing.  C'mon man.  You have a fine voice.  But I definitely liked the first album more.  And since that album, four stinkin' years ago, nothing but a small EP and an album of weird ass Christmas songs.  Feels like a weird time to take a break?  We'll do one more with his newest single, to let you get a feel for that one.  "Rent Free," released in 2021 and now with 13.2 million streams.

 

By the way, each time I see it written, my brain still says his name is slack.  I wish that he could find better beats, honestly.  None of these are that interesting, but his lyrics are usually enjoyable and his flow sounds good.  I wish he'd have a good, hard, memorable beat that made me get hype.