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Once I find a movie I like, I can watch it time and time again. A few examples - "Step Brothers is one of the start to finish funniest things I've ever seen. I feel like I find something new each time I watch. "Friday After Next” certainly isn't as GOOD as "Friday", but the shift in storytelling, and the supporting cast just work for me. "Blade", the first great Marvel movie, is a basic cable staple, and when it's on, I watch start to finish every time, commercials included.
One movie I watch, but never finish, is "Scarface". Hood classic, late bloomer, Spike TV's favorite go to, the story about Cuban criminal turned American criminal turned coked out corpse, is a movie I both love, and find hard to enjoy in it's entirety. Whenever Scarface is on, I stop the movie right after you see the tiger in the garden. He made it. Tony Montana rose to the top, got the girl, and the ridiculous pet. Fin.
So my relationship with the super popular film parallels the relationship I have with Drake's music. I'll preface this by saying, its all pretty good. There really hasn't been anything he's released I didn't "like" upon hearing. The issue is timing. "So Far Gone", Drake's first mainstream mixtape, is maybe the most important collection of music to me personally. To set the stage:
I had just recently graduated college, and had a well paying job. I'd been seeing a girl for about four years, and we'd just moved in together. Over the course of about four months, it just fell apart. There was nothing specific, it was just the change from living with/ around friends, and going to just the two of us, didn't work at the time. So the next few months were, in a word, intense. I was out every night. I was drinking more days than not. I had never really dated, so I was getting used to the whole dinner/movie drinks aspect of early 20's adulthood. But I figure this was how everyone else was living, so I should embrace my newfound freedom.
I didn't really talk to anyone about the situation for a time. It's hard to talk about things in your head going bad, when you have more control over your life than before, especially at a young age. But the fun, wasn't always fun. You become accustomed to sharing your space, your thoughts, meals with that other person. So, to cope, there's the alcohol. There are the parties, the bars. There's poor dieting and a lack of exercise. You want to exist in a space where you don't worry about what isn't happening anymore, but you want to control as much of every other aspect as you can.
So word of mouth starts talking about "So Far Gone", and how this kid from Canada can really rap/ harmonize. I give it a run. I'm immediately floored. The bars are strong. The cadences are crisp. The "ballads" as they were, REALLY work. But the best thing about it - it's just so unapologetic in it's selfishness. It's "808's and Heartbreak" if Kanye could naturally produce an alto. The entire crux of it is "how am I supposed to handle all these good things happening to me?" and I could understand, start to finish. It was about being the pressures of being desirable, asking people to fix things you ruined, and most importantly, nothing is really my fault.
So it's difficult for me to dive into the deep end of any other Drake project. The music has progressed, and for all intents and purposes, he's BETTER today at singing and rapping. But "So Far Gone" was my crutch, my doctor, my friend. I don't need that tarnished, because it meant so much at the time.
On the opposite end of that is Future. I want to hear every Future record made ever. I want the stuff he tossed in the garbage, the stuff that didn't make a mixtape cut. Whereas Drake's first big project is the very best of "Scarface", Future is the extended cut. It's all so painful. It's sex, drugs, and rock & roll, but if Roger Troutman smoked Newports and had his jaw wired shut. I love it. It's dark, even when it's being lighthearted. I understand being around people that don't have your best interest at heart, self-medicating, and well, crazy dealings with women. Everything he has to say, even if I can't internalize it, I want to know about it.
"DS2" is phenomenal. It's blood and guts, the whole way through. "Is Rap music destructive?" Is always a hard conversation for me, because like most things, it's how you internalize it. I'm pretty sure at least 15 people died over the course of 18 songs. MAD BIRDS got flipped. So many pints of lean were consumed! But it's the way you present the subject matter. People forget Nelly's first single was about a damn drive by, because of the sing-songy nature of the hook. HE CAME OUT THE GATE KILLING PEOPLE! So when Future has the confidence to title a song "The Percocet & Stripper Joint", neither of which I'm really fond of, and I can't stop listening, I know whatever the subject matter, he's going to present it in a way I just want to hear more. It's real artistry - no matter the specifics, it's crafted in a way that even if you don't live it, you can SEE it.
Perhaps the biggest hook to Future's music is how it deals with women. It's certainly not embracing any type of one on one relationship, but the why out weight the "WTF?" for me. It's common knowledge Kayne's "808's" and "MBDTF" were inspired by ex girlfriends (to varying results), and a common idea is that "Yeezus" was hyper sexual because it was created while his wife was pregnant. So when Future opens with "you'll fuck a bitch nigga for the fame, won't you?/ you'll give that pussy up to a lame, won't you?" you have a pretty good read on who's being referenced. So even it the relationships aren't the one's your parents would approve of, you see real world events inspire language and code, making the music more authentic. In 2015, this is the only artist who's every word I'm hanging on. In the same way that I replay the hotel chainsaw scene in "Scarface" 5 or 6 times every time I watch. Up until the Tiger. Because there's really no movie after that. I'm convinced.
The "What a Time to be Alive" group conversation is in part 2.
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