In the likes of Curren$y or Big K.R.I.T., XV sits for me as one of the most dependable new age emcees clocking in the microphone booth, as his product contains an unfaltering pace of quality, and easily wears the album nametag despite being merely a mixtape. One of the more consistent questions pertains to the continual delays to Vizzy’s proper Warner Bros. debut, The Kid with the Green Backpack, but when he’s putting out projects in the caliber of Popular Culture, you have to ask yourself if it matters, and how much better it could really get.
For most emcees, the approach XV takes could be picked off as an easy gimmick, but in Vizzy’s case, the Americana motif is purely genuine, as he projects a blend of nostalgia and the cultural hilarities of his personality to make his music a direct reflection of his artistic mentality meeting his interests. Popular Culture falls in line with previous concept tapes like Zero Heroes, Everybody’s Nobody and Planet Squaria thematically, though also touches in the less-painted vein of the Definition mixtape series, further showing XV’s motion toward welding the finer details of his overall signature to one another. While aspects of tracks like “Wonkavator” with Emilio Rojas (who drops a serious feature verse alongside Vizzy) tack on comedy through the Willy Wonka samples fused into the hook, the general idea of the record takes a different aim contextually, finding a fine equilibrium amidst the punch lines and braggadocio of the lyricism that shows off XV as ultimately casual, yet grounded in the upper rungs of self-confidence.
|Related: Wake Up Hip-Hop: Why All Eyes Should Be On XV |
Popular Culture is rife with media snippets ranging from Office Space quotables to The Truman Show to the Scarface theme, and while the mixtape orbits around the aforementioned concept, XV remains glued to his opening tradition of the endurance record speaking on the continual come up; “Andy Warhol” immerses the listener into a landscape of industry and character commentary via Vizzy’s intricate lyricism, though avoids the hazard of being too blunt, working rather through top caliber instrumentals and cleverness to make its statement. The ethereal “Breaking Bad” follows the same crux, and onward into the album, we see the “Squarian” theme rise , making Popular Culture much more about XV’s following than we’ve seen in previous projects (“I speak for those who are not spoken for…I’ma say f*ck your circle, I’m gonna be a square”).
The tape has its banger moments, such as in the Full House-featured “Mary Kate & Ashley” and aforementioned “Wonkavator,” which act as the antitheses to the denser runs on the tracklist. The long-ago released “The Kick” that features some Hans Zimmer Inception samples and “Go On Without Me” is where we find XV at his deepest, breathing his autobiography through the lyricism, and creating ultimately human music saturated in an emotion that you won’t find on the cover of XXL or behind the radio dial.
Tracks like “Her Favorite Song,” “Zombieland Rule 32” and “Hi, Life” cross into the clichés that we’ve seen in XV’s catalogue before, and lack the creativity of records like “Jedi Night” that are poured over the same frame, but are tagged with an original brand. Despite the ScHoolboy Q and B.o.B features, “Aaahh! Real Monsters” sits as one of the lesser-quality records on the mixtape, and the talent contained is clearly underutilized amidst the tacky hook and weak instrumentals provided by The Awesome Sound (whose work throughout the remainder of Popular Culture is exceptional).
“One of One” and the more introspective self-talk records that simultaneously push outward narrative (I know, it’s a vocabularic mess) are where Vizzy puts his premier skills on exhibition; his lyricism proved itself long before the Warner Bros. pick-up and digital expansion, and we find him best where he dissects himself within his records to take listeners into his mentality rather than forcing it upon them as most emcees blindly do. Every piece of Vizzy’s music is meant for something, whether it can be decoded or not, and is always alluding to something more; there’s no wasted space on his mixtapes, and while all of Popular Culture may not be exceptional, the content within sacrifices quality for necessity to convey the grand scheme.
B+
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