Quick Hits, Vol. 254 (K.A.A.N., Pop Smoke, Kamayiah, Destroyer)

I spent the almost all of the day today listening to the Smiths.  I really don't know why, I had a snippet of "Big Mouth Strikes Again" stuck in my head for reasons I don't recall, and so I threw it onto Spotify and just let it roll for like eight hours.  Surprisingly great!  In my mind, they were more of a high highs and low lows type band, but I honestly really enjoyed the experience of hearing them all anew.  Pretty, tender, quite lovely songs with some good songwriting to boot.

K.A.A.N. - Twenty-Nine.  2020.  Knowledge Above All Nonsense.  One of my co-workers popped into my office last week to tell me to listen to one of this guy's tracks - unbeknownst to him, the dude has like 20 albums available on Spotify.  So, after thinking that "Lonely" was pretty alright, and after hearing that Dr. Dre has co-signed on this guy, I figured I'd give an album a chance.  His most recent disc is this one, following four (!!!) releases in 2019, and it has a cool sound.  Kinda funky, sample-style beats, and the raps come out sounding kind of like when Kendrick Lamar gets high-pitched and kind of intense.  "Timeless" actually sounds like Mac Miller.  Sadly, I might have grabbed the lesser of his albums, because none of them have made his top ten on Spotify yet.  "Meek Interview" has the most streams, at only 18k, and is kind of a mediocre track (I assume it has many streams because people think Meek Mill is on it?), so I'll give you third place instead, "Observation," which has 10k streams.

On some of these tracks, like on the back half of that one, he'll leave you breathless with the unrelenting cadence.  I'm not sure how someone can rap that way without ever seeming to really take a deep breath.  I enjoyed some of this album.  Not sure anything on here grabs me in a way that makes me believe he's the next big thing, but he's solid.

Pop Smoke - Meet the Woo 2. 2020.  I like this guy's cadence even better, if I were comparing the two, although KAAN's lyrics are stronger for sure.  Pop Smoke just popped onto my radar after he was murdered a few days ago during a purported home invasion, and then read an article in the Ringer lamenting his loss as the new sound of New York hip hop.  He's got a grimy voice that sounds cool, and his beats are tough and brawny as well.  But his lyrics leave something to be desired - the kind of guy who says his name too many times in a bar.  Feels appropriate that Quavo from Migo's is a guest on his second track here - another guy who talks loud and says nothing but makes sure to say his own name in each appearance.  Some of this also reminds me of that guy who said Panda a million times in that one song.  The top track is "Dior," which was actually release before this album but is on the deluxe version.  34 million streams.

Eh...  The beat is kind of cool, and yet again his delivery sounds tough and menacing, but the lyrics are just stream of consciousness junk (and homophobic junk too, tossed in for good measure).  Big bummer that the guy died, seems like he was a hometown hit who maybe would have spread further out than just NYC, but I won't hold on to this album.

Kamayiah - Got it Made. 2020.  I loved her album from 2016, which was the same year she came to ACL and put out a weak ass show - started late, mailed it in, too much hype man.  This one is more of the same, good Oakland sound on the beats, brash flow.  She's angling more for the nasty rhymes, where she didn't used to go that route, but I think she's trying to join into the ranks of the hot lady rapper thing right now like Megan Thee Stallion or Cardi B or whoever - like "1-800-IM-HORNY" - whereas her old tracks were more about having a good time in the ghetto or drinking too much or whatever.  But most of these are still bragging and tough lyrics - I very much enjoy the one with Trina "Set it Up," where they are jacking up a guy who was cheating on both of them, by spending all his money and smashing his stuff.  "Still I Am" is the top streamer right now, at 1.2 million.

Tough beat, with a little Oakland-style high notes over bouncing low end in there, and she's just throwing down brags all day.  I'm loving some of the people in that video - the guy in the screencap up above who looks like he borrowed his mom's Sentra to come get in the video and is very pleased now that he made it, or the one in the video right after that who throws some convenience store trash out of their open door as they skid by.  I like her.

Destroyer - Have We Met.  Spotify thought I would like this guy once my playlist was empty, and I kind of dug the track that they picked for me.  Not so sure about this whole album though.  Has an 80's vibe in here - the opening track "Crimson Tide" seriously sounds like a lost Pet Shop Boys track to me.  Overall, the vibe I get from this is like The National and Bowie?  He was with the New Pornographers previously, so he definitely has experience in those sorts of fun tracks.  Like when the guitar kicks in on "Kinda Dark" as I'm writing this and that is the right level of action that I was looking for.  Maybe I like this more than I thought.  

686k streams.  I very much like the chugging bassline of that track.  And that video is creepy and weird.  Very catchy and cool.  But then, the next song is this super spare, beat-less Radiohead-In-Rainbows-B-Side thing.  I want the whole album to sound more like the good catchy stuff, without any weird detours.  But even with those detours, this one is solid.