Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Creamtastic / Music Mixtape Round-Up: New Hotness From Dee Goodz, OpenMic, Darnell Levine & Rio
Posted by Sean Maloney on Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 4:40 PM
Above: New Dee Goodz freestyle [HT: HipHopDX]. Below: Four local mixtapes that have been bumpin' at Fort Maloney for the last few weeks. You may care about this sort of thing, and you may not. I can never tell with this crowd. I know y'all love free music, but I also know that y'all commenters might not have the best taste on the Internet. I'm just throwing that out there.
He doesn't have a new tape out yet — he lost Cooly High in the flood — but he did drop a new video where he freestyles on Lupe's "Beamin' " beat from the forthcoming tape ConGrADulations. It's already been picked up by 2DopeBoyz and HipHopDX, so it seems appropriate to give it a shout. I'm sure that you've already downloaded College Kids and Dropouts (and you've seen the video for "50 Pairs" that was on The Smoking Section, right?). Dee's got a super stoney delivery and laid-back flow that I really like. Stoner rap can get pretty stupid pretty quick, but Dee manages to keep it classy and cool.
It's been a while (two, three years?) since we've seen a solo tape from Future's frequent collaborator OpenMic. A Different World is a mighty nice slice of contemporary college-rap — clever and witty without getting bookish and boring — the beats drawing on the latest technology and classic head-nod styles. He's not as pop-leaning or as bombastic as his friend Future, but that's A-OK, as OpenMic has more than enough personality and lyrical prowess to keep things interesting for an entire tape.
I missed his birthday party, but that doesn't mean I've slept on Levine's new Internet sampler. #IAMMUSIC is 28 minutes of smooth, reggae-influenced, ’80s-informed R&B that makes me think I need to refresh my knowledge of Maurice Starr deep cuts. The new single "So Nice to Be Loved" is looking to be my official song of the summer.
This is just a straight-up club record — no fucking qualms about that. Big, monster kick drums, stacks and stacks of epic synth stabs. If you're into that Huntsville sound you're gonna dig this one. Rio's got a strong voice and an ear for strong hooks, but sometimes the monumental production veers too far into ’80s action-movie territory. If you like R Kelly and the movie Cobra, you're going to fucking love this tape.
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