Denzel Curry [EDIT]

One Liner:  Surprisingly solid rapper whose mom gave him some sage advice

Wikipedia Genre: Hip hop, trap, experimental hip hop, punk rap
Home: Carol City, Florida (part of Miami metro)

Poster Position: 9

Weekend Two Only

Thoughts: Saw this guy play live a few years ago at a SXSW showcase at Stubb's where he was one of many unknown openers for Lil Wayne.  My recollection was that this guy and Boogie wit da Hoodie were two of the openers, but now I can't find any post that I did about that show (even though I recall writing one?  Losing my mind).  Anyway, my recollection is that this guy was not especially impressive, so I was surprised to see him all the way up on the 9th row of the poster this year.

Amazingly, this is really his name.  I thought for sure that he tried to piece together a perfect name of pop culture references and decided a top African American actor and a top African American basketball player would resonate and be popular with rap fans.  But nope, I'm the dope, his real name is Denzel Rae Don Curry.  Raised in Florida, he started making mixtapes in grade school, and then was apparently discovered by SpaceGhostPurrp (who sucks big time) and joined that dude's group for a while.

His first real album was released in 2013, when he was 18, although that one isn't available on Spotify.  The three things (well, in addition to a pile of singles) on Spotify are 2015's 32 Zel, 2016's Imperial, and 2018's TA13OO (which is pronounced like taboo).  But his top streaming song is not on any of those releases, but is a single from 2015 called "Ultimate," and in my opinion, it is very annoying.

This is what I don't like about Meek Mill - the rap flow that sounds like someone just yelling at the top end of their vocal register.  No nuance, no flow, just maxing it out at the top.  But, 115.5 million streams, so maybe everyone else finds that maxed out crap to be appealing?

Also going to note this random and unpleasant story: "On March 4, 2014, Curry's brother Treon Johnson died of injuries from being tasered and pepper sprayed by police. Officers had responded to reports of Johnson throwing coconuts from a roof at a dog that bit him. Curry has said that his brother died of an apparent cardiac arrest when he went into sepsis from a freak injury after being tasered."  Holy shit.  First off, "throwing coconuts from a roof at a dog that bit him" is an amazing story - like some Diddy Kong in real life shit.  How do you have that many coconuts?  How high of a roof?  Did he hit the dog?  I have so many questions.  And then for the guy to die over that?  Let him throw his damn coconuts!  Freaking sucks, man.

His second-most streamed is from that 2018 album, and it uses Kurt Cobain's suicide as a device in the chorus to talk about his car, which is an interesting move.

His album cover for this album has this clown makeup shit on it too and it is definitely freaky.  Almost 60 million views of that video, plus another 63 million streams on Spotify.  Fucking disturbing ass video too - damn.  And not an easy song, to be honest - obviously the suicide references all throughout aren't happy, but it's also very paranoid in a well-written way.  I kind of figured that "SUMO | ZUMO" would be the big hit from this album, but that one is only at 20 million streams - it just has the better beat, but I guess the lyrics are pretty unimaginative.  That album also has a tune called "BLACK BALLOONS" that has more of a Pharcyde/Anderson.Paak vibe to it, that I kinda dig.

He's got some good turns of phrase in here as well - much of his lyricism is generic hype stuff - but here and there he ties together bricks and Shaq's free throw ability or drops a line with Pennywise and floating.

The top track from 2016's Imperial is the album opener, "ULT," which is actually pretty solid.

The slow burn of the open, kind of ominous and tense, and then when the actual verse starts, it stays pretty bare, until the bass comes in and the song really gets at it.  The chorus feels like something the crowd would get into.  Dense ass lyrics though - I can catch the part about cops shooting people and "black as the raiders," but so much of this is so damn fast and complex that its hard to grab out of the air without going to read the lyrics. 

Oh, no, here it is - His most recent single freaking bangs, and I can imagine doing it up in a crowd at the Festival.  A killer beat that erupts, a pretty solid flow of lyrics, and a killer chorus that will be perfect for yelling with a couple thousand other fans.

"My daddy said, "Trust no man but your brothers," and "never leave your day one's in the gutter," My daddy said, "Treat young girls like your mother," My momma said, "Trust no hoe, use a rubber."  Poetry.

[edit]  I posted this back in May, but since then he released the full new album that has "RICKY" on it - ZUU - and its his best album yet.  The beats are better, the lyrics are better, the whole vibe is very good.  Other than Rick Ross, all of the guests on it are (at least to me) nobodies with names like Ice Billion Berg and Kiddo Marv, both of which sound super made up by an eight year old who had 5 seconds to come up with his rapper name.  But I dig the new disc.

I'd also like to mention that he does a pretty unhinged version of "Bulls on Parade" that is available on Spotify that I like, just because that song is great, but am not entirely sure about, because he just screams a lot.

I am imagining this show will be pretty fun - if you want to go get rowdy to some deep bass with a bunch of teenage boys who want to mosh and throw down, then this is going to be the right place to be.  Weekend Two only though, so I'll probably miss him.  Dammit.