Review Summary: Headshot, buzzer beater, bitch it's game time
The resurgence of the boom bap sound over the past years has yielded a bevy of incredibly talented rappers that have married the classic style with a slick, greasy modern edge. The cyclical nature of trends implied that this renaissance was sure to happen, but it's especially heartening to see the passion inherent in many of these projects, rather than them being just displays of popularity-courting or bandwagoning. Hip-hop label Griselda played no small part in the resurfacing sound, their roster certifiably bursting at the seams with impressive, promising artists. All of these figures had been grinding in their own way for years prior, but garnered sizeable acclaim once association with Griselda and its noteworthy reputation on the scene had bolstered their profile. James Clay Jones III, aka Boldy James is one such rapper, having released his debut LP, produced by notable scene mainstay The Alchemist, some time beforehand. After disillusionment with the hip-hop game and being underwhelmed by many popular trends temporarily halted his drive, he fell into relative obscurity for a while. It was Alchemist who encouraged the rapper to re-emerge and record some new material, which ultimately resulted in his rise to scene prominence and joining the Griselda collective. Killing Nothing is his seventh album, so it is fair to say by this point that Jones had been around the block a few times. The experience is plain to see throughout the record, both in how confident the material is and how carefully the lyricism imparts its street wisdom. The sample-heavy, thumping beats call to mind an era of rap long since departed, but in channeling this sound Jones is able invoke his modernist take on the topicality. This is unadulterated street rap, with a sinister, wizened edge that the rapper has been able to capitalise on, possibly here to its purest degree.
The primary topical concerns on the album lack a great deal of variation, and are primarily concerned with the well-worn tropes of hustling, enforcing, and the drug trade in general. Nonetheless, Jones is exceptionally talented at weaving barbed touches into his no-nonsense, monotone delivery. Discussions on reservations with past associates, historic set-tos and deals gone sour pepper the release, always undercut with a nasty, dry, foreboding sense of menace. There's a notable undercurrent of meditation on the album, with tracks having a sense of gruff, off-the-cuff reminiscence of dark street folklore. The content is buffed hugely by the beats themselves, which, much like Jones' other work, has a huge, oppressive sound for such basic musical form. Produced by the Real Bad Man collective, the percussion pops and the bass throbs, interlaced with simple samples that give the experience that classic basement studio feeling. They create textures that imply melody without ever actually being melodic, and their simplicity, when paired with Jones' rapping style, is a caustic hybrid of grit and single-minded purpose. Tracks such as 'Water Under The Bridge' and 'Game Time' solidify this in no uncertain terms, their repetitive nature underscored by an alarming sense of impending danger through Jones' lyrical flow. On 'Water Under The Bridge', he asserts,
'Should've never let him live and got him hit like I was 'bout to,
but I didn't- hit or miss, should've downed you.
Hit my hitter with a a split, for that ticket, he gon' scalp you...'
The intimidation factor on such bars is amped up like a Tesla coil when offset by the consistent, plodding percussive metronome that thooms like a giant lumbering out of a cave. The central figure feels reprehensibly amoral in his statements, but completely believable and utterly compelling. This is especially impressive considering the base nature of the beats' component pieces, and the flatline nature of Jones' delivery- everything feels edgy, threatening and utterly captivating thanks to the cumulation of Killing Nothing's individual facets.
The choruses throughout the record do occasionally ring a little hollow, with rare variation from the monotonous drawl that makes up the main body of his style of delivery. It's suitably fitting for the tone, but as these moments tend to be little more than a looped recitation of a two or four-bar rhyme, it sometimes feels like needless segmentation in otherwise no-holds-barred tracks. Regardless, the consistency of the sound throughout the record is bizarrely endearing, even nostalgic despite its occasional modernist tendencies. Jones is able to blend the thoroughly modern tough-guy persona with occasional pathos and surprising sting-hits that shift the focus beyond the one-dimensionality of the typical subject matter and into a vibe of more emotional realism. For instance, on 'Ain't No Bon Jovi', he relates,
'My gaga told me 'say a prayer for me too',
and to be careful what I do because my son wanna be just like me...'
This kind of introspection is intuitively weaved in brief flashes into the wordplay throughout the record, and creates a more humanistic portrayal that adds depth to the bloodletting and dodgy dealings in a more grounded way. Add into this the classic beats, and these moments feel legitimately nostalgic and appropriate for the tone, even when the content becomes so egregiously thuggish so as to be alienating. The lyrics themselves are never particularly nuanced in this regard, but they are certainly always extremely well-controlled and calculatedly refined for maximum impact.
The huge sound and gangsta posturing on the record feels genuine and slick, with the brash, bold beats cementing a street-level foundational layer even before Jones opens his mouth. It's unsophisticated, but as a base display of heady rap integrity and street poetry, there is a startling amount of intent and passion to be found in Jones' lyricism, despite what his delivery may suggest. It's a display not only of hardened criminality, but of objective observation and even an extremely understated wistful yearning regarding brotherhood and familial ties. The production is crisp even in the simplicity of the instrumentation, ensuring that nowhere does the music feel stale or underdeveloped. It feels pure, self-assured, and exclamation-point assertive, and Jones is here again on top form, pacing the beats as a lion might stalk a herd of gazelle. It's undoubtedly a record whose sound will appeal to those with an interest in a classic East Coast vibe, as well as those who like their hip hop unfiltered and unencumbered by production novelties. It is, however, through the overall sound of the experience that appeal will be determined, and the composite here is one of tonally vicious yet menacingly restrained, ugly, seething energy. Every track pulses a purified nostalgic flair, with Jones spinning his rhymes with a classic yet distinctly modernist bent that doesn't upend or expand his style as such, but most definitely hones it to a steeled, ice-cold and thrilling standard.
