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Wait, scrap that... B4.DA.$$ and If You're Reading This... (which basically made me do yet another full 180° on Drake. I'm back to bangin' NWTS and Thank me Later and even Take Care, all because of the freshness of this "mixtape" (fuck it, it's an album).
B4.DA.$$ is an album I constantly forget about, but there's no damn reason for it. It's an immensely successful underground->pop crossover for Joey B. His "Long.Live.A$Ap", if you will.
It's totally solid and probably only fades from memory temporarily because it's such a fundamentally classic East Coast boom-bap record. It doesn't scale conceptual mountains or gestate in a womb of orchestral jazz Impressionism like Tetsuo. It doesn't swagger into a saloon wearing Spurs and six-guns, daring on-lookers to say somethin' stupid like ALLA. And of course it doesn't turn the rap album into a thousand page Bohemian novel about holidays in Perdition, social reform and reincarnation, like To Pimp A Butterfly.
It just more or less kills it. Joey Bada$$ is gimmick-less, much like his Flatbush familiars The Underachievers (who, as y'all know, I have a bit of a thingfor), and the album achieves something a perfect cosmic middle ground between Talib Kweli's conscious heroic "good guy" emcee and the fury of early Wu-Tang Clan, while still further establishing Joey's unique identity.
I feel bad for not mentioning it more, but please believe, I have been listening to B4.DA.$$ regularly all year long, my regard for the album growing all the time.
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