Music Reviews: keep it going!!!-xaviersobased
This album cover is so whack it’s genius.
What the hell is this? No, seriously,- What. The hell. Is this. I’ve listened to all types of tunes in my day, and I’m no old man. I’ve been in the Soundcloud scene, retired, come back, and since, retired again. Don’t look me up, it’s very underproduced. But anyways, this is something else. Is it good? Is it bad? No…it’s just different. But also kind of excellent.
Mumble rap has many roots. Musically, it owes roots to guys like Casino Clams and Pierre Bourne. Lyrically, and melodically, it sort of started with Young Thug and Lil Uzi Vert, who showed people you could say whatever the hell you want. Smoking penises anyone? (That’s a Young Thug line, for the record.) Then, Playboi Carti pretty much stole the show, and now he owns the whole genre. Listening to “Magnolia” for the first time changed my life. But enough about that. Let’s talk about this weird ass record.
I know nothing about this artist. He also doesn’t seem like a real person. The beats and bars are repetitive, clawing melodies out of jarring rythyms that don’t work the first 5 times you hear them. Then, somehow, after xaviersobased says it for the 6th time, it sort of works. Then it works a little more, and by the end you’re bobbing your head. If the flow doesn’t work, the beat does, and usually, they both work.
The beats on this project are fun, a mix of quirky, bright, corny and ethereal. Like many early mumble rap beats, these sound like the product of refine amateurism, an intentional leaning towards chaos and simplicity. These are not easy beats to flow over. They have weird tempos, feeling simultaneously fast and slow, melodies discordantly sliding in at different speeds than the underlying rhythms. The drums often feel off, like someone applied a 140 bpm drum loop over a a 100 bpm sample. I don’t even know what to make of it. Pitchfork called this “stoner rap” and while I think that’s partially true, I also think it’s more the type of stoner rap I would listen to when I don’t care what’s on. It’s the album that plays on my Soundcloud after I forgot to switch it off of my Carti leaks, while I’m red eyed and delirious in the Taco Bell drive thru, wondering where the fuck I am.
Xaviersobased is actually based in New York, which is fitting. I can picture this loon walking down the street deliriously shouting lines like “Tell this bitch I’m shooting from my left hand!” and “Why all these hating ass [dark skinned gentlemen] say they need me!” Truthfully though, he says a lot of nothing. A lot of “I’m on go!” and “I need more money just to show up” type lines. The throwaway lines are the point, not the fodder. He grabs your attention with gems like “We was deep in BK…” before proceeding to rap about selling Os. But the delivery is so confident and frenetic that it’s hard not to vibe to these songs. They all kind of sound the same, but in a good way.
After 17 songs we know almost nothing about xaviersobased, besides the fact he’s a little weird and likes beats with sonically odd drums. See, the strength of his charisma is that, in a way he sounds like someone you know. Maybe not you, the listener, but like, a guy you saw at a party passed out on the couch. “One of us” as they say. He’s a friend of a friend, someone who might sell you shrooms. I can dig it. It’s a fun energy. He’s cool in a way that isn’t intimidating.
There are a few standouts, at least in terms of “This is the gist” of what he does- “Need Me”, “Special”, “KikMiHijo”, and “On My Own” are probably the four “essential” tracks here. They highlight the frenetic flows, the quirky beats, the often rambunctious energy, and the general havoc of xaviersobased. He doesn’t sound like a guy who lives on a couch. There’s not that kind of hunger. Rather, he sounds like a guy who has an apartment, but chooses to sleep on your couch, even when you don’t really want him there. I applaud him for being such a creature.
Overall, the record is fun and interesting, even if I don’t know if it’s very good. It defies judgement, which is both annoying and admirable. This is an artist I will watch from a distance, probably giving him 3-4 tapes to see if he switches up his sound. I don’t know if he’s ever gonna hit the mainstream, in fact, I doubt it, but I feel like someone who listens to him will hit the mainstream at some point. He will probably be viewed as very influential somewhere down the line. In conclusion, I don’t know if you should listen to this record or not- but you should definitely know about it if you consider yourself any sort of hipster.
