Larry June

One Liner: Chilled out rapper from the Bay Area

Wikipedia Genre: Hip hop
Home: San Francisco

Poster Position: 9
Both Weekends.  Sunday.

Thoughts: Larry Eugene Hendricks.  Bomb name.  His Wikipedia, for unclear reasons, includes the tidbit that he was born to teenage parents.  Which makes me really pleased, in that this means two teenagers, in 1991, decided that their baby boy needed the most grandpa ass name they could come up with.  Larry Eugene.  The most popular baby names in 1991 for a boy were boring as hell - Michael, Christopher, Matthew, Joshua, Andrew - neither Larry nor Eugene pop up in the top 100 baby names in America in 1991.  Oh wait, he was the third.  Nevermind.  His parents weren't cool at all.  I thought they had a cool old-school sensibility and wanted to name him unfashionable old names.  Instead they were the exact opposite of being original.

Before my first kid was born, I spent a ridiculous amount of time with a book called the Baby Name Wizard, and its related website, to try to pick the absolute perfect name for my kid.  I know it will be a shock to you, the reader of a blog that obsessively chronicles information about a music festival that the writer has no connection to, but I was a little OCD about this process.  Color-coded tabs throughout the book.  A ranking system I made my wife play along with to determine our favorites with data.  Detailed little charts digging into the historical popularity of certain names.  It was a lot.  I have regrets.  In the end, after shooting down my wife's super cute names and pushing hard for Stewart, I'm pretty sure we didn't even use the damn research I had compiled.  This is the way.

Anyhoo, my man Larry.  The stage name actually comes because he has the same name as his Dad, and so people would call him Larry Junior all the time, or just Junior, which sounds a lot like June when this man says it.  He was born in San Francisco, then lived in Atlanta into high school, before going back to SF to continue high school.  By then, he started to rap and dropped out.  Around 2016, that started to work out, because he got to open for Post Malone on his tour.  He was signed to Warner for a while, but Wikipedia makes some noise about how he is on his own now.  Which is an interesting choice, and also interesting how he got on this poster without kissing the LiveNation ring.  He has an absolute pile of releases - I guess that is what happens without a label - 9 albums and a bunch of other mixtapes and EPs.

"Gas Station Run" sounds very much like he is from the Bay Area - some Too Short vibes on both the beat and the lyrics.  Oh, wait, this whole album sounds like that.  2021's Into the Late Night is pretty solid.  Definite Too Short feels.  2020's Numbers is more laid back and chilled out - I really enjoy it, but the vibe is on some old school soul samples and cooling out.  In fact, that's kind of the full vibe from this dude.  None of these songs are going to inspire a big hyped up mosh pit, he's more likely to inspire people to get stoned and just bob their heads.  The top track is from 2019's Out the Trunk, called "Smoothies in 1991."  21.5 million streams.

Hell yeah, picking out that kombucha from the cooler.  And that old school Mustang is sweet too.  I like his flow, I like the classic beat.  He isn't saying anything too important, but overall the vibe is good.  His second-most streamed is "Watering My Plants," from 2020's Adjust to the Game.  12.2 million streams.

Love that little classic sample - just sounds like West Coast rap right there.  Nice, laid back track.  I love that he is talking about investing strategies at the start of it.  Hell yeah, rapping about passive income up in this bitch!  And then a sweet exchange with a nice looking lady, including a desire to get her some plants for her new apartment, and then keep them watered.  Really nice boyfriend material here - mailbox money and a green thumb!

His newest album is a collaboration with Jay Worthy and LNDN DRGS called 2 P'z in a Pod.  Same vibe.  Although, I honestly don't like it as much.  I prefer the tunes with just Larry on them.  None of those tunes crack his top 10 on Spotify, but we'll give one a taste anyway.  "Leave it Up to Me" has 854k streams.

Yep, the dude in the Palace shirt is the weak link on that track for sure.  And yeah, this guy is good.  I like his whole vibe - the flow is good, the lyrics are relatively positive, the beats are classic.  I can dig it.  So far, the best rapper on the poster!