IDK [EDIT]

One Liner:  Ignorantly Delivering Knowledge rapper with some good stuff

Wikipedia Genre: Hip hop, trap.
Home: Prince George's County, Maryland

Poster Position: 23

Weekend Two Only.

Thoughts: The guy's birth name is Jason Mills, but he goes by both IDK and Jay IDK.  I figured that IDK stood for I Don't Know, but Wikipedia claims it stands for Ignorantly Delivering Knowledge.  "My name is Ignorantly Delivering Knowledge. I like ignorant music, and I like music with substance."  Guy was actually born in London, but his Wikipedia lists his home as Prince George's County, Maryland twice.  Is that a well known location?  Is it normal for any other person to describe their home by the county, instead of a city?  Looks like it is really part of the D.C. metro area, but they represent themselves as from PDC to differentiate from regular old DC people.  

Interesting thing is that four of his top ten tracks also feature Denzel Curry, who I just profiled because he too is coming to ACL.  I wonder if they are on the same agent or something that would cause them both to appear on each other's music and glom together for the festival. They aren't on the same label (per the likely very exact information on Wikipedia) but who knows.

A bunch of albums/mixtapes: 2014's Sex, Drugs, and Homework (nice usage of the Oxford, there), 2015's Subtrap, 2016's Empty Bank, 2017's IWASVERYBAD, and 2018's IDK & FRIENDS :).  I didn't add the smiley face emoji...  The top track from that most recent album is the one with Denzel Curry, and I agree it is the best one on there.  "ONCE UPON A TIME," with 3.3 million streams.

The beat is great stuff, even before the Wu Tang-ish/Tribe Called Quest-ish flow pops up.  Great freestyle flow - IDK's last verse was freaking hot.  The rest of that album is only OK - nothing on it really stands out.

On the other hand, several of the tracks on IWASVERYBAD are damn good.  It also has some clunkers like "Birds & the Bees," but "Pizza Shop Extended" and "No Shoes On the Rug, Leave Them at the Door" are as good as anything else this guy has.

The Empty Bank album has a funny sound, in that his sound bounces all over the place, from Kanye in "Somebody," to Kendrick on "Mr. Mills," to Schoolboy Q on "Boy's Innocence" (and others).  

His best album is Subtrap.  The cover is great, where he's sitting on a front porch with an AK in one fist and a keyboard in the other.  This album has kind of the style of Kendrick's Good Kid MAAD City, with an overarching storyline that you can follow if you listen to the whole album.  The songs each list a character in the song title (i.e. "Dirty Scale (Jay)") so that you know which of his characters is speaking for the track - Jay (the weed dealer), King Trappy III (the coke dealer alter ego of Jay), or others.  He explains the concept (which is kind of weird) in "Sexy Bartender/Intro."  He even set up Twitter accounts for each of the characters on the album. Here is one video from the album, "Metro," that pushes that narrative and story forward - 553k streams.

Good stuff, and the whole album is very good.  If you liked Good Kid, then you should like this type of thing as well.  "God Said Trap" is the bigger hit than that one, with 3.2 million streams.

One more video - his most streamed track (also with Curry) is called "No Wave,"  with 6.4 million streams.

Has elements of ASAP Ferg in it - both in the shouted asides that sound just like Ferg (what?  right!), as well as mentioning his watch being plain jane.  Feels like the ignorant side of his rap persona, but its a good, brawny track.  I like it.

Surprisingly, this guy is really freaking good.  If you only try one thing out, go listen to that Subtrap album.  And I bet his show is pretty live as well.  let's go!

[EDIT] new album released on 9/13/19, called Is He Real? and its also pretty solid.  He's got Pusha T doing a cameo on a track that also features a bunch of sound bites from porn! That is the best song on here - "Porno."  I'd like to find that one and play it for you, but I refuse to search for IDK Porno and see what the search results return.  So I'll give you "24" instead.

Got those Jay-Z "uh huh huh" sounds in there.  I also am a fan of the low piano strike as a rap beat device.  Underrated.  He also sings surprisingly well on "December," with a really nice tenor.  "No Cable" has a really nice flow to it.