the sweat, by Dripsy: Recent Episodes
Dripsy
Who is Peter Lewis?
He was there the night Tupac was shot in Manhattan. Yes, he was helping Biggie record another masterpiece when Lil Cease left the studio to invite the other Hip Hop legend up to watch NOTORIUS work. Lead flew instead. The beef began. Indeed, despite beefs real or contrived, Peter was there many nights, locked-in till dawn with iconic producers and artists, at the board where digital magic glues riffs and themes and vocals and beats and melodies and rhymes and flow.
It was Quad Studios on Times Square, the brain and ganglia of music from the late the 80s to the 90s.
He witnessed the evolution of Broadway and Seventh Avenue from city grit to the beginnings of touristy Disneyfication; he captained the sounds of the transformation, from the Death of Disco and the rise of Heavy Metal to Hip Hop's Golden Era to East Coast versus West Coast self-destruction. In 1997 he moved to Nashville, thus lending his expertise to America's second-biggest self-contained genre.
And yes... that's him in one of FDNY's most beloved rescue images before 9-11, when the old studio burned and a firefighter grabbed Peter, clinging like another Peter (Parker) to the façade of a crumbling and sooty outer wall, 1991.
The guitar image? Yeah, that's Dripsy as a lad, with Peter-- perpetrating like I was Eddie Van Halen or Slash (who Peter knows, by the way). The guitar remains one of Peter's many talents. And obsessions: he collects and refurbishes the instruments, from exotic wood acoustics to downright freaky custom electric models.
He's now a restless New Yorker in backward-ass Florida but hey, can't beat the sights and the weather, right? Listen in, and you'll understand why Dripsy cherishes him as a living encyclopedia of all things musical.
Peter Lewis. Uncle Pete...
As Dripsy learned in middle school science class, diamonds are made deep in the Earth's mantle, under hellish heat and pressure. Chance might want to slide seventeen of these things deep, where they can get some squooze, a lotta blaze. Twenty-two songs in his first LP album. Five are great. That still means five little diamonds on that clear CD. The rest are specks of carbon. As Stephen Kearse said in The Nation:
"...The Big Day is his [Chance's] coronation, storytime for what he views as his grandest tale. The record is certainly heartfelt and joyous, but its gushing heart rarely adds up to more than empty devotion. As Chance re-creates his big day, claiming marriage raps as an act of independence, the line between storytelling and branding blurs."
Dripsy's just sayin...the law of averages is a bear. And Chance, bruv, most wedding reception music is just--average. Has to be. Think about that as you listen to today's broadcast, savoring the diamonds, tossing the specks of carbon back into the furnace. Peace...
NOTE: APOLOGIES FOR THE 'BUMP' NOISE IN THE BROADCAST. WE HAD FILE ISSUES AND WE HOPE TO FIX OR PUBLISH A TRANSCRIPT. EITHER WAY, YOU'LL LOVE IT...
Why did I write this song? Nothing any deeper than the need to experiment. Anything and everything RAW came to my mind intuitively. Indeed, art can be anger. Everyone will admit that; music, dance, sculpture, painting, drama etc. professors will teach it. But can anger be art? Yeah, think that one over.
When I first conceptualized this project, I was in a predicament because freshman year college work and the soul-sucking that is adjusting to school were a priority. Yet I still wanted my debut music to a be milestone, if only to me.
"I was inspired by hard-hitting lyrics over a trap beat that would become a “hype/turnup” track: a song for people who are willing to have an exciting time or go into a club."
Moreover, in order to garner a fanbase an artist must have some transcending quality to their music so it stands out to listeners. Yo, that is NOT the same as pop-culture success. But to have both popular success and transcending art you need to touch people. I decided that I wanted to touch on both ends of the spectrum to enhance my versatility as a rapper-- the outcome is growing my fanbase over time while improving time as as an artist. This is the first single to my mixtape that will be dropping once school starts around Labor Day, 2019, titled “Without Concept” and probably the only single I release before that project drops… ‘less I decide to glass y’all mugs wid another one, moe—as they say down the Parkway in DC.
So take the above as a synopsis, explanation…confession… on my first official release. Raw or right? You decide.
JermaineDupri is showing his age...says female artists are nothing but "stripper rap." Let's educate him...
[VIDEO BELOW, AT DINNER WHEN I WAS ASKED TO DEFEND THESE COMMENTS...]
Is my problem with Logic illogical? It’s about staying true. No, not as opposed to telling lies. Truth also means direction. Consistency.
Logic has been one of Drispy’s favorite rappers ever since I heard his “Young Sinatra: Undeniable” mixtape and his debut album “Under Pressure” in 2014. Those projects were masterpieces—yes, I think they fit all dictionary and personal definitions of that term. They led to his sophomore project “The Incredible True Story” and placed him deep within rap’s elite, in Dripsy’s hopefully learned opinion.
However, many rap critics and Hip-Hop fans alike don't concur with Dripsy's assessment. While experts rightly have nailed the down tempo stuff, casual fans, especially the trap community, see his music as corny (whatever that means) and derivative (ah, now that’s a term we can chew on) because he benevolently praises…bites off of/mimics?... MCs such as Drake, Kendrick, and J Cole.
Another negative critique of Logic springs from his "Everybody" album, where some reviewers such as Andrew Gretchko more delicately present the harsher view of the casual fan: that Logic harps on being bi-racial in 80% of his songs. That is not true empirically (by the way Dripsy isn’t bi-racial... I’m plain ole light-skinned). And even Gretchko relates what creators like Logic, like Dripsy carry in our bone marrow: we sing/write/paint/create what we know, what gives us joy and pain. Growing up the way he did in Maryland, with the parents God gave him and he didn’t choose, and struggle he had to endure, is his defining condition. So, 80%? Naw son. But it is theme that works fine as a foundation. Nevertheless, we need to see him grow as an artist. You grow by remaining true and build around that. Grow, or become a cliché, irrelevant.
Which brings us to the ultimate controversy: the conflict between his last two projects: "YSIV" and "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind."
Let’s take YSIV first. I disagree with the critics here. YSIV was a very well made album that sounded drastically different than most of the other modern music being made by his peers. Creative, daring…different. That’s the direction Dripsy urges Logic to take and blaze for others. The YSIV album keeps him in rap’s elite. Stamp, moe, as the folk say south of me in D.C.
Nevertheless, COADM fed into all of his haters’ criticism and gave casual fans more of a reason to consider him irrelevant; it was a perfect example why following popular rap trends is not the most resourceful plan of action. Yes, it’s derivative. Yes, the beats, the bridges, the effect are cliché.
And yes, it makes Logic seem like the near “white boy” adopter, promoting pop-songey positivity that some of the more ignorant critics and fans heap on him. Accordingly, this brand of bogus haters now has cover from the legit critics, who use the COADM album to argue that his peers such as Joeybada$$, J.I.D, Joyner Lucas, and Denzel Curry have surpassed him on the rap plateau.
So is it illogical to say that Logic has a consistency problem? No. One bad apple album doesn’t ruin the whole dang display in the Harris Teeter...
"...but when folk are thinking you are corny because of the way you look, your themes and musicality of your work, they will point to that nasty apple despite the luscious ones all around it."
Dripsy believes he is numero tres behind Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole. Bite that apple. He is one of the most lyrical and versatile rappers of this generation and he will go down as a top 20 in Hip-Hopstory when his legacy is complete. He just has to stay true. Stay consistent. Nothing illogical about that…