Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
I figured Rap Monster was done releasing music videos for songs from his mixtape, but he was saving at least this one, and the “Joke” MV continued a string of successful efforts. I mean, hey, can’t go wrong with Run The Jewels‘ “Oh My Darling“ beat, right?
Damn right.
Prior to him releasing “P.D.D“, I didn’t think much of Rap Monster at all as a rapper … or at all. I knew that “American Hustle Life” was good for laughs, but really the only idol rapper I kept track of was Zico. Well, after this mixtape, I think I’ll add Rap Monster.
Like Zico, it’s not that he’s without flaws or whatever else, so don’t get me wrong on that front, but he did open my eyes quite a bit. Thus, Rap Monster achieved what he wanted by going the mixtape route, which was to gain credibility and respect as a rapper*.
*Credit to their company for funding not only his mixtape but also the music videos for what is essentially something that doesn’t profit them at all. At least not that I can see.
Anyway, everybody is obsessed with the fast rapping, which is up to their preference, but I couldn’t care less. I’ve commented on why briefly in Outsider and Twista articles before (and KPOPALYPSE explained why it’s sort of irrelevant as well), but simply put it’s not important to me, at least any more than people should claim the Micro Machines guy as the world’s best MC.
What did impress me is that while Rap Monster has been experimenting with different flows throughout the mixtape, he combined many different ones into one song on “Joke”. Some who know may disagree with me here, and I understand that, but I personally loved the way he mixed it up on this track. There’s a point in the second verse where he’s talking about how others can’t even rap/rhyme minimal lines, and he goes off with unintelligible babble “bibidi babidi bubidi babidi nimini namini jirimi chakami” and then proceeds to spit a bar that does make sense and rhymes almost every word as if just to prove a point. Rap Monster uses a similar rhyme scheme at multiple other instances in the song (rhyming every other word or something), usually when the beat picks up a bit, and he ends up going back and forth a lot between the end of every other line old school flow and a more modern flow where he rhymes multiple words from bar to bar or uses a rhyme at the end but with a repeating word in the middle (like ‘six’).
…
Or you could not care about that, like how most of the comments on the video are about how hot he looks and how his feet are pretty. So … however you want to appreciate it, I guess.
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Previously I thought Rap Monster was on the right track conceptually, and that he had solid ideas, but some of the execution was lacking at times and so was the content. Well, this was the first time I was impressed with him technically, so while diversity of the content of his raps could still use work, that has time to develop and he’s headed down the right path. Impressed is how I came away from his mixtape, which was unexpected.
And now with that said, I wait for another surprise music video to drop, one that has him doing thug lord shit that makes me facepalm. Until then though, job well done.
