Kreayshawn - Somethin' 'Bout Kreay

So, about Kreayshawn...

She's from Cali, Oakland, I believe, and I guess you'd have to call her a rapper. MC Lyte isn't going to have any sleepless nights over her skills, but Kreay's definitely got a pretty decent buzz going for her on the back of her internet breakthrough track Gucci Gucci and a couple of mixtapes.

Kreayshawn works the ambiguous lesbian thing pretty hard, dressing like a Borderline-era Madonna and rhyming mostly about drugs and girls. Safe money is on the college lesbians and perv dudes to be two of the big demographic that are hot on Somethin Bout Kreay'. Students of the hip-hop game probably will not turn out in numbers.

But the first two sets do still buy records, which is the only possible way we can account for this dropping on Columbia Records in 2012. As Kreay and her label's shareholders are no fools, Gucci Gucci reappears, as do another dozen tracks of varying quality, both by her lonesome and in conjunction with a raft of sub-par rhymers including, but not limited to: V-Nasty, Kid Cudi and 2 Chains. None of the tracks trump Gucci Gucci, and the lion's share of them vacillate between making me want to skip over the track with the quickness and feeling utterly downtrodden that I'm a man as old as I am listening to them. I would, however, suggest checking out the 2 Chains track at least once to hear him shout out grapes.

For those that are not fruit-rhyme inclined, Left Ey3 embodies the whole Kreayshawn conundrum. On said track Kreay lets us know that she will, in fact, wild out like Left Eye if necessary, shouting out Amy Winehouse, Courtney Love and Lorena Bobbit in the offing. Point made. Definitely not good, but not necessarily totally bad either. While there are some real steamers that should have never left Garageband here, the Diplo track does have a decent enough beat, but all in all not a lot of positives here. No real hip-hop fan is going to give this more than even a passing look, but if you are under the legal drinking age and/or if you drink enough cough syrup to enjoy Kid Cudi or 2 Chains (nee Titty Boi), maybe you'll dig this.

R

Gucci Mane & V-Nasty - Baytl

I can't say that I ever foresaw an era where I would ever have a full-length from Gucci Mane in my possession and I guess as this mixtape is a split with V-Nasty, I'm still technically correct, but either way it comes with more than a soupcon of ambivalence. You can blame Kreayshawn, I guess. I was pretty into that Gucci Gucci track for a hot minute and thought the mixtape was pretty ok, but it's never going to knock Lord Finesse out of heavy rotation.

And let's not get it twisted, I think we can all agree that it was a check that brought this unholy union together. I can't think of too many people clamoring for Gucci and V-Nasty, as it's hardly G. Rap and Rah Digga linking up. There are a couple kinda ok tracks on Baytl but can we stop the fucking deconstructionist spelling already? I bet this is probably much better with a bunch of thugged-out Oakland hip-hop ladies around, but lacks a little bit in the compulsion to replay department. Baytl is not the greatest release you'll hear this year, but each party drops a good line or two (not a verse, mind you) and if you look around you probably won't have to pay for this. Google away, I say.

R