Some time ago. Two birds needed to be killed. However there was only one stone available. The problem was this one stone could not achieve or validate that beloved and old idiom about killing two birds with one stone. Sometimes, one stone just doesn’t work, the physics just won’t allow it, just as the Math doesn’t add up.
So in such times as those, you pick and choose. Bird A or Bird B. Just as you pick a struggle everyday because who needs more than enough?
I’ve been made to believe I chose the wrong bird, and I do not like it at all because first of all, I still enjoyed the bird I got that day, would I have enjoyed the other one even more, perhaps, but hey, glass is half full buddy. Nevertheless, I shall ramble about the half-emptiness of my glass first, the bird I didn’t choose, only as a consolation prize of course, nothing else.
Aug 30th 2024, two artists in my spherical periphery dropped projects. Bird A and Bird B. Big Sean released a new project called Better Me Than You, and on the very same day, TDE’s new kid on the block, Doechii (who’s not really new anymore), dropped a mixtape titled Alligator Bites Never Heal.
This provided the month of August a strong finish, and I was nervously envious of August for it, but overjoyed nonetheless because this year keeps giving notable projects that will act as important valuable markers in the foreseeable future in my nostalgia. 2024 has been a big year for music, and it’s not even done yet, kind of reminiscent of 2016 which was also another great year for music. Regardless of what bird I picked first, I got both birds in the end so (insert hands up/shrugging emoji) before going any further into this article I would like to just start off from the album titles. I am not quite convinced that Big Sean could not come up with a better title for his album, it sounds generic and very rough draft-ish. It’s almost as if, he just stuck to the first title that stuck out to him in the the genesis conception stages of this project and at this point I think John Doe would have made for a much better alluring title because Better Me Than You is not only distasteful but disdainfully sounds amateur and unimpressive.
So off the bat the title is a bit off putting, I’m not quite amused by the wrapping this gift came in, but because supposedly it’s the thought that counts, we’ll still check out what’s inside. But before we get warped and wrapped up in the contents, there’s the other contending bird, Bird B.
Alligator Bites Never Heal, is the kind of title that will attain meaning because you assign it to it. My attempts were put at a halt as I ransacked the World Wide Web, in and out looking for a clue as to alligator bites. I thought it was perhaps a pre-historic times-idiom (Not quite), but it wasn’t. Perhaps, could it possibly be implicitly connected and linked to an interesting peculiar myth surrounding alligator bites (Hmmm, well if it is, my search engine is yet to give me that update), not quite either.
So what is it? What does it mean that alligator bites never heal, because obviously they don’t heal, have you seen an alligator, you don’t need to be Einstein to arrive to that conclusion, so what is it? Is Doechii just playing with us, or she’ll flip it like Missy and tells us a good ten plus years later what she be really saying on Work it. Perhaps, to ascribe meaning to this title, we’ll have to devour the contents lining up the box. It’s time to check out what’s in these gift bags.
Doechii, 26-year old artist/rapper/singer signed to Top Dawg Entertainment gave us a Ludacris boisterous, Missy Elliot versatile, Avant garde encompassing, Doechiiesque sounding mixtape and its called Alligator Bites Never Heal.
This project undoubtedly and easily contests as one of the best projects to come out of hip hop this year. Its deeply influenced by 90s and old school hip hop embedded in the sonic production of the whole record as a whole but mostly the first part of the tracklist and speaking of (tracklist), its endowed by range and variety which weaves in and out beautifully like clockwork, from tracks like “STANKA POOH,” into unorthodox titles like “Boiled Peanuts,” “Denial is River,” and into softer sounding songs like wait and slide amongst others where she sings over beats.
On this project, rapper/singer/artist Doechii manages to channel an array of energies and personalities from top to bottom into a one sounding body of work. With a dark creeping production lining by Kal Banx and Devin Malik, “STANKA POOH,” Doechii starts of strong with bars:
“Let’s start the story backwards
I’m dead, she’s dead, just another Black Lives Mattered
And if I died today, I’d die a bastard
TikTok rapper, part time YouTube actor”
Interestingly, on this song Doechii reveals considerably a lot about her thought process and her fears ultimately through the back and forth of what if. So a good part of the second verse is a peek at what goes on in her brain. A little anxiety about the future sprinkled with a tinge of deliriousness and a spoonful of legitimacy.
“I’m just shootin’ the shit over some pretty production
And it’s still not enough of somethin’, needs more somethin’-somethin’
Who’s that creepin’ through my rearview? (Thirty-somethin’)
I’m not nervous, I’m just concerned for us
What if I die a Taurus? What if I die on purpose?
What if it wasn’t even worth it? What if I’m walkin’ alone?
What if I choke on this Slurpee? What if I make it big?
What if my car exploded while I’m casually pumping the gas and smokin’ a cig?
What if my life was loaded? Loaded pile of shit
Whole lotta pussy and a whole lotta dick
Whole lotta bills and a whole lotta kids
That’s it”
So we bop from “Stanka Pooh” into “Bullfrog,” which also feels like an ode to hip hop in terms of the beat production, however with more of a ravenous undertone to the sonic production of the track, coxing Doechii to say some dexterous, snide bars like,
“Do you wanna take a ride on my ego trip? Slow down when you riding this ego stick, ya dig?”
Also inclusive of bars that will futuristically serve as markers of the passage of time with periodic/era specific bars like, “Twitter fingers get your whole life logged out, bitch.”
Granted most tracks on this project are short and the opposite of full or lengthy, they do have this effect to kind of just stand out and make you perk your ear because a) there’s a familiarity to it that you like because of the nostalgia it injects b) it sounds like nothing else out there right now, a+b= peculiar.
“Boiled Peanuts” is constructed of intro, chorus, verse, chorus, the end. But, and that’s a very strong but, in that verse, sis is able to tactfully embed the record with storytelling and visual alliterations that end too soon, but before you can fume, “Denial is a River” chimes in, and off the bat, you’re caught up in trying to follow through and listen to yet another story that hopefully is not yet another snippet.
Welcome to “Denial is A River,” two personalities, one body, back and forth. Kind of like watching tennis, if the ball basketballed around on one end before sending it over the net. The dynamic between Doechii the doctor and Doechii the patient is reminiscent to me to that of Dr Dre and Eminem on Guilty Conscience.
As the tracks on the project weave in and out, so does the exhibition of what Doechii can do lyrically and sonically. Its apparent that her skillset is a sheet that spreads out widely horizontally, she cannot easily be boxed inconspicuously. It kind of reminds me of when I get braids over my locks, my dreadlocks fold…but only momentarily before they start poking out of my Janet braids, refusing to be hidden and inconspicuous.
So the same chick who ate a hard beat like “Bullfrog,” wore a straight jacket on “Denial is River” is also the same person to sing over beats on “Hide ‘n Seek,” and pop chart friendly songs like “Slide and Wait.” This project is also endowed by soft and beautiful songs ie “Bloom,” which is beautiful not just in the sense of vocal and sonic arrangement, but in the intention and message of it; what it represents for any twenty-something who’s realizing that this thing called coming off age doesn’t coming with a grand opening and splendid parade to make you aware and signify the entry and commencement of adulthood.
The sonic and vocal skeletons of this song aid the delivery of the resounding response in the intro to soak in with a much smoother effect, and you become like a cell wall, taking in everything that’s enlisted:
“I’m constantly trying to remember, like, okay
‘You have to chase your goals, but you gotta check in with your mom
And you gotta make sure your sisters are okay
You gotta make sure your bills are paid, but you gotta make sure you have fun and time for you, time for your friends’
And like, I just constantly feel like I’m neglecting parts of my life”
REMINDER:
God made a day twenty-four hours…It’s not a lot of time… Because, you, you just can’t do it all in one moment…
There’s past, present, and future,
You gotta put pieces in places, it’s 24 hours
You take part of those hours
You do what you can do, and you go to bed
At this same time, this song grounds you and keeps you in check at the end despite its fleeting idyllic, angelic harmonies and energies with an outro from Doechii where she airs out a desire to chase her dreams blindly but then has her daydreams rudely shattered by the reality of bills that are due.
In a world where pace is dictated by social constructs, comparison and false propaganda, fostering a stinging pressure that makes it difficult for one to sit down but easier to just be blown anywhere by the wind it is nice to know that the thought of bills and responsibilities is a loud rapture in everyone’s monologue and ruins everyone’s moments. Even for some of the stars we see on the tv-screens.
“I just wanna chase my dreams
I just wanna be like
‘Oh my God, fuck everything, fuck it, I’m moving to California
I’m following my dreams, oh, God
I’m a performer, I’m an entertainer, I’m a star'”
I think its important to have breaks like these in music and film to show the universality of certain personal struggles we carry lest we dare think we alone are afflicted. It’s important to know that we’re not alone in these struggles. There’s a universal perspective one cannot neglect regardless and that is the disruption of all things by the present moment. Its like that one friend of yours who just won’t shut up, so any escape from them is purely ephemeral and fleeting because their status quo is built-in and never-changing.
“But I can’t, because, bitch, you have to have rent
You have to have a place to live, you have to have money
You have to maintain things, and that’s just the way of life”
Better Me Than You starts off with an intro titled “Pressure,” that is comprised of whispers from people supposedly around him giving assumedly unwarranted suggestions and thoughts on what he ought to do, that whole shindig. Some interesting and simply astonishing remarks from some of the whispers in the intro is the city needs you dawg, which I feel is a just a very odd and wild thing to say someone because ultimately it inflates your sense of self beyond the springing chord of reality which is that within the magnificence and greatness of this thing called existence, one is lucky to even be a punctuation mark in the grand scheme of time. So to say the city needs you, to Big Sean…in 2024…is remarkably astonishing.
“You need one of them anthems…you need to diss somebody…You should just disappear”
People have an interesting way of seeking significance and relevance in your life, and its highly psychological stemming from the verbiage used which incites an almost reflexive response because when someone starts of a statement with a commanding suggestive phrase i.e you should, you need to, you’re almost inclined to pause and carry it out. And sometimes if you don’t take a moment and pause long enough, you wind up doing things you don’t really want to and before you know it you’re being puppeteered into different corners and one day you’re at the bottom of a bottle in a semi empty bar asking yourself how the hell you got here.
First track of Better Me Than You, is a Hit-Boy produced song where Sean almost lazily boasts about his iconic status basically on some typical rapper shit. Nothing profound is said despite how good the beat is. Nothing really sticks out besides how infectious his flow is on the track. Interestingly at the end of “Iconic” the track kind of lingers and descends into some discernible soft vocalization that weaves into the following track “Typecast” almost seamlessly.
It’s almost like “Iconic” was the alternate version of “Typecast.” Like he’s playing with us on some, I can easily make this, but you’d like this much better because there’s an injection of depth, vulnerability and authenticity in it. On “Typecast,” Big Sean is talking about how he cannot be type casted, which is to be put into a box, an experience familiar to a lot of people, most of us are just unaware and unconscious of it.
Not to award blame on humanity, because ultimately assigning meaning and defining the world around us is a survival tact, and so it only makes sense that to feel comfortable in a forever changing and morphing world we put people in boxed and categories to as to understand them.
Unfortunately in doing that, we put a limit on the potential of someone, because you force onto them a picture that’s very black and white which is unfair because the world is such a colourful place to leave someone stuck in a greyscale painting.
The transition from “Iconic” into “Typecast” is an interesting one, its smooth and almost obscure perhaps that’s what gives it a subtle appeal, one can easily miss the irony in the polarity of the two songs despite that they literally pour into each other. Its polarizing but in an appeasing way because listening and bopping to the emptiness and lack of depth on “Iconic” feels sycophantic, however when “Typecast” chimes in, running from the familiar drop of the indiscernible vocals, the world finally makes sense again.
Despite “Typecast” being a better track compared to iconic, one cannot easily escape the sense of wish-wash seemingly littered on this project thus far, it makes you feel like, how intentional were you with this project Sean?
At this point, I’ve picked up on a trend of the tracks becoming more vulnerable and serious as we get further into the album. Despite that, there’s a feeling difficult to shake as you digest the deeper records with more breadth from the project. This project sounds incredibly solipsistic, it feels like even when Big Sean’s attempting to scab at more profound thematic concerns in this album it still feels largely about him and revolving around him like the sun, escaping the overarching theme of him is as relentless a task as trying to escape the sky.
Perhaps suiting given the album art of this project. His third bar on “Break The Cycle” goes: “Lena Waithe told me I was the black Brad Pitt, I wasn’t too fond of that title flattering as it is, I mean really though that’s what you think of my rep?”
However once you get over the vanity of that bar and the ones that follow, you come to the “profound” realisation that you have to break the cycle.
Off the bat, one song that stood out to me on this project is the Gunna assisted “It Is What It Is,” (boy!) the track bops, undoubtedly, it’s definitely single status, the type of song you release as a single just to get the audience hyped and ready to call for encore. Perhaps this is how Big Sean has come to carve his niche as a club-popping, chart topping, anthem chant-master. This is what we’ve come to expect of him, to give us these infectious songs that act as markers at a certain point in time in our lives, and I would like to give him credit for not attempting to give us an album of anthems only, because that would do more damage to him than to us (the audience)…yours faithfully, well-wishers associations.
From “It Is Wh the album flows into “Apologise,” a song where Big Sean confronts someone who owes him an apology for something he’s clearly not over and most likely is still processing because in oversight whether in the heat of things or the thawing of it, it’s hard to see the full picture when you’re standing too close. Once again, we’re thrown into the world of Big Sean (our sun), as he faces head on his issues with Kanye, alluding from bars like: “Look at you, you was supposed to be big bro. But somehow, you didn’t grow”
If this part of the last verse was a letter, that bar above would have easily served as the salutation, to make us aware of who’s being addressed, and the following bars serving as the body of the letter:
“I even tried to lay the play down, for the pick and roll
But you couldn’t play the roles
Even paid your lawyer fees and you tried to get me for more
Even all the money in the world couldn’t fix how you grow
Niggas claim they solid, when they solid as a house of cards
Meanin’ the more I stack, the more that it’s just bound to fall”
Despite the solipsistic nature of this record and the very much self-centered world building embedded into this project there’s something about this song that’s relatable. The closest people to us have the greatest potential and means to hurt and harm us, and because of the underlying human connection that bonded both parties into this relationship, the blind spots and oversight incurred is just as colossal, hence the back and forth both parties go through when engaged in an interaction where emotions are running high and tempers are flaring.
It almost feels like vertigo when you’re going through it, but ultimately what’s important at the end of the day is to each other accountable for whatever happens, regardless. And I love that this universal message comes through from the solipsistic Big Sean in “Apologize,” because I mean, who would have thunk it.
”Apologize fake-ass, snake-ass
You say you sorry when you not
Dug your grave, bitch, you got a lot
Only thing you good at, ain’t no way I’m goin’ out
Like that, like that
I ain’t mad at you, but I ain’t forgot
‘Cause I ain’t mad at you
But I ain’t forgot
I’ma hold your ass accountable, a lot
Oh, surprise, I’m on top”
On overall, the project enlists some pretty interesting collaborations as well which uncannily substantiates the album in a more solid way. Ultimately it’s like despite the one perspective nature of this record and the overarching theme of ‘Sean’ engulfing the project like the sky as I mentioned earlier on, he also wasn’t too caught up in himself not to include other voices and enlist other creative minds onto the project to help tell his story. And that’s hopeful.
There’s no denying that this was a project he recorded largely for himself, as a means of therapy and catharsis, I just wish the execution of this was better and done in such a skilful manner that it wouldn’t be as apparent that he recorded this for him and that it wouldn’t make him come off as this self-absorbed rapper character here to catch you up on the events of his life like they are tectonic plates or something. The contents of a gift are always personal, but they always come in the universal form of a box. And perhaps that’s due to good reason.
