INBOXication: L.G.

So last night the homie Dom Brady emailed me with a message saying “Yo. I think you’d like this.” Dom is one of the few cats whose musical tastes I trust, so I made it a point check out what ever it was he was sending. It was a link to a video by this cat from New Orleans named L.G. for his song “Kool & the Gang.” There’s two groups I’m very weary of when it comes to sampling, MAZE and Kool & the Gang. Here L.G. and his partner Bonka rap over “Summer Madness” and they did their thing.

After peeping that, I stumbled across some more links to his music over at DGB and found another video for this Untitled track.

After hearing this I was sold. Digging deeper into DGB I saw that they had a link for his mixtape that dropped over the summer. I’m listening to it right now and I’m enjoying it. Dude is just rapping over dope beats, plain and simple. He has a hi-fi tinge to it so it make you feel like you listening to the next new dude in his early stages. Oh yeah, dude is only 17.

That’s what I’ve been kind of complaining about for the last five years or whenever Soulja Boy first came out. When he dropped folks (mainly music industry cats or wanna be music industry cats) was talking about how we shouldn’t scrutinize his rapping, or lack thereof, because he was “young” and “its for the kids.” Which I always thought was a bullshit statement. Mobb Deep and Outkast were both 18-19 years old when both of their debut albums dropped, meaning that they were probably 16-17 when they got discovered and signed. Mac Mall was 16 when he put out Illegal Business. I know for sure I was 13 when I got put on to Nas, Wu Tang, UGK, Snoop Dogg, 8Ball & MJG, etc. I was a kid. I was 12 when I heard The Chronic for the first time. I was 11 when I got put on to Scarface. Why wasn’t I listening to “kid” shit then? Because that “for the kids” shit wasn’t an excuse or reason to make bullshit back then and should’ve never been.

But, after talking with Dom again he was like “kid” shit always existed and it still does, its just that folks tend to take the BS as the common thing and don’t bother paying attention to the better stuff that are the same age are doing. He compared Soulja Boy and Earl from Odd Future as an example. Granted, I never got into Earl and them like that, but from the little I heard, I can kinda see where he coming from. Regardless, I think we are getting back to where more young cats are actually out here spitting and not “acting their age.”

But yeah, didn’t mean to make this post about anybody else so I’ll get back to L.G. I can’t really tell you who he reminds me of. He doesn’t necessarily have a distinctive voice like that. I don’t think he’s at that point where you will hear a song and be like “oh thats LG” yet. But he is definitely at that point where you hear it and you say “who is that?” The closest person I could say for the sake of conversation is probably say, Young Chris…you know, the State Property guy Jay-Z got his post-2003 style from. Some moments of the album remind me of Blu’s Below the Heavens too. Oh yeah, I think L.G. makes most of his own beats too.

Another thing too, N.O. is doing their thing right now. There are quite a few New Orleans spitters out there right now. My man Nesby Phips was telling me about whats going on down there right now and how alot of stuff isn’t getting out of the city like it should, mainly because the artist themselves aren’t getting out of the city like they should. Here’s to hoping L.G. doesn’t meet that fate. Judging from the experiences he’s been posting on his Tumblr page, I don’t think he will.

Anyways here are a couple more tracks from his Cinco mixtape for you to check out, and I’m leaving the link at the bottom.

“Venting”

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“Love”

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The tape is only ten songs long and I want to leave something for you to hear on your own so that’s it. Oh yeah, whoever dude is rapping first on the posse cut at the end is pretty dope too.

DOWNLOAD: L.G. Cinco