Cashmere Thoughts: Rap Game Frasier Crane

[Editor's note: Nashville comedian Chuck Anderson knows two things: jokes and hip-hop. So we're giving him a weekly column to wax wise on what's good in the local rap game.]

Writing about music is weird if all you’ve done is listen to it your whole life. I’m not going to front on y'all — It’s not easy. How do you describe the feeling of absolute foolishness you get when hearing the opening bars  of Busta Rhyme’s "Woo-Ha! (Got You All in Check)"?

You can’t.

You just turn it up. That’s the best part of the visceral listening experience — not thinking. Getting involuntarily absorbed in a track for whatever reason it touches you, like that "Woo-Ha!" touches me, makes a music an unassailable force of nature. Maybe you like a song simply because it makes you dance; or maybe because it reminds you of the 7th grade party where you first noticed hormones ruling everything around you. Whatever the case, intellectualizing the experience dulls the sheen.

But now, since I decided to writing about music, I have to start thinking about music.  I’m such an idiot. Good thing I like feeling uncomfortable, as evidenced by my dating-life and breakfast-food choices. (Shout out Cracker Barrel hashbrown casserole and [name redacted], who won’t text me back!)

Everyone should get out of their comfort zone. So I implore you, good reader, to not be one of those “hip-hop music isn’t what it used to be” assholes. OF COURSE it’s not what it was when you were 18 and ungodly hormone levels pulsed through your body and led you to believe “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent was the greatest love song of all time. You were an idiot when you loved hip-hop at that age, because (with obvious exceptions) hip-hop is typically best ingested with little to no thinking. Oh, you say hip-hop is supposed to be about lyrics? No it’s not, dummy. It’s about shaking your ass. It’s about having fun in the park with your friends. Lyrics came along years and years after the breakbeats that dominated the early days of the genre. 

And so, young reader, don’t become one of those cratchety old heads who stops listening to new stuff at 24. And if you happen to be a cratchety old head, try to go back in your head to when you were 13 and realize that  "Woo-Ha! (Got You All in Check)" didn’t really make sense then and still really doesn’t make sense now. You still turn up, though. It's ageless! 

Now check out these ass-shake-worthy local tracks from the likes of Stan, G-Slab, and Alocodaman and others. Try to stop thinking. I’ll do that for you. 

FU S.T.A.N.'s  "Chill Shit" (feat. Mello Rello) pairs well with Netflix 

STAN isn’t just ill for a Nashville rapper. He’s ill full stop. "Chill Shit," his new banger with Mello Rello, is the kind of track you'd wanna spin to get to the “chill” portion of a “Netflix and chill” evening you set up on Tinder. I fell into the STAN Google wormhole on Tinder. Just kidding. But I did recently hear him for the first time and fell in love. I’m rooting for this dude for real. I also enjoy hanging out at bars. 

Gee Slab would like you to roll his weed up

Gee Slab impresses with his video for “Hey Hey Hey" (below). It's a warm, solid southern pimp track and the clip brims with images all good songs subscribing to that ethos contain. sex. Weed. Smooth talking. Dope Rides. All articles of faith for those who'd make pilgrimages to Port Arthur, Texas to visit a shrine to Pimp C ... if it existed. I may build this shrine one day. It’s such a good idea. Hold up. I’m going to go register an LLC in Texas. But back to Gee Slab. The video takes you on a fun ride through the city with the rapper, while he openly smokes mad trees in public. Take that, Drug War!

Alocodaman ain't nuthing ta fuck with I recently caught Alocodaman (Loco to his folks) at The Basement East and there was a big cardboard O.J. Simpson head onstage. That's awkward — I was instantly a fan. Check out “How I Roll” and take a trip into Inglewood and inside my favorite chicken spot, Harold’s, the Chicago staple with a Nashville outpost. I usually go for a six wing with mild sauce and all of the fries they can give me. I’ve heard that’s a popular order there. Loco murders this shit, though. There are few things I like more than angry dudes that can spit bars. Smooth raps are fun for sweet 1 a.m. hangs with your shorty doowop and shit, but I’m putting Loco on before I need to collect from people that owe me money.

Tanya Ali is a fighter You should go give a listen to Tanya Ali’s "Shadow Boxing," which featuring Michael David Hall, who is not the guy from Dexter. (I Googled it!) Ali’s raspy flow and complex delivery pairs well with the track's industrial beat, and Hall’s hook is decent. I dig what’s going on here. 

Wally Clark catching vibes

Once again, the boy Wally Clark is killing the satin-sheet rap game. Having endured my share of troubled relationships, I can smell what Wally (who also produced this track) is whipping up in this kitchen on "I Caught a Vibe." Sometimes you think there’s a vibe. When you're feeling lucky, that vibe leads to the best kind of trouble. This is a fun track for daydreaming about that and waiting that Tinder match to text back. 

Jung done come "Up"

As previously state, like any American kid raised on 2 Live Crew in the Sir Mix-A-Lot era, I get sprung by tracks that make butts move involuntarily. And for that, Jung Youth comes through for me with "Up," the rapper's track featuring recent Ryman headliners Cherub. I expected to hear a song that goes well with glow sticks and molly (which it does, believe that), but Jung and Cherub did the damn lord’s work by ensuring the groove moved the butt. Don’t stop. Get it. Get it.

Rap Game Frasier Crane

Spin-offs can be terrible, but thankfully bukuTummler, a new side project from BZRK members ThirdEye G and MacDon is more Frasier than The Tortellis. "European Lean" is a legit monster track, with production that could easily be found on a Curren$y or Schoolboy Q mixtape. Shit rides. Give it a listen with a Styrofoam cup full of some mud and enjoy.

Benjamin Franklin on line 2

Some of my favorite songs are about money. I try not to listen to too many songs on the topic, though. There is a fine balance between living vicariously through a rapper spending racks on bottles and being reminded of your current inability to do so. You know what they say: "Mo money songs, mo problems."

But when I do get my hustle on (and by "getting on my hustle " I mean balancing my checkbook), I like to have songs to add to the "Grind Yo Ass Off" playlist I've been crafting over the years. "Money Callin'," by once local rapper Dee Goodz, is now in the rotation. There are few lines I've listened to lately that have resonated with me. Lines like, "I'm really living a movie, what I need a SAG for." If you can put those hand-clapping emojis here, dear editor, please do.

[Editor's note: No can do. Frownie.]

Goodz and guest rapper Chase N Cashe do destruction on this one. The beat has essences of the West Coast hippie sound I dig so much, and the so-smooth-it's-slippery hook is tremendously, tremendously dope. This will be played as I figure out how to write off sneakers on my taxes.