Review Summary: An artist largely ignored and disliked, SpaceGhostPurrp defies all odds and continues experimenting with his trademark sound, only being fueled by the isolation he's caused himself.
SpaceGhostPurrp. This rapper and producer is most probably one of the most enigmatic and polarizing artists in the trap rap scene. There was a time when SGP seemed like a promising new artist to enter the rap world back in the early 2010s, producing for staple artists of mainstream rap such as Juicy J and Wiz Khalifa, and up-and-comer at the time, A$AP Rocky. In these early days of his career, one could find his work praised and observed in many a blog, as well as eventually seeing coverage from bigger music review publications like Pitchfork and even Rolling Stone following his signing to 4AD records. His early mixtapes are often seen as essential to the development of dark, psychedelic and narcotized trap music, so commonly heard today. Many popular rappers of recent years like A$AP Rocky and Denzel Curry (as well as countless other artists from the disbanded "Raider Klan" collective) may never have broken through to so many ears were it not for the influence and/or help from SGP. So what happened?
Without going into much detail, SGP went into a downward spiral of countless twitter beefs and narcissism. It seems almost every relationships with artists SGP either endorsed, supported, or worked with, eventually went sour. I love to take SGP's side in everything, but I was once told: "If you encountered a handful of assholes today, they were assholes. But if everyone was an asshole today, you're the asshole." I think this logic can apply well to our friend SGP's track record, but then again, it is hard to judge a scene of artists who are nearly all neurotic, egotistical, and putting on a show. Anyways, the point is you don't see reviews of SGP's music on Rolling Stone or Pitchfork anymore. You'll only see news articles on trendy hip hop publications about his new beefs and misfortunes. It seems SpaceGhostPurrp has continuously sabotaged himself into a reality confined by hatred, ignorance, immaturity and self worship. Listen to any of his music on Youtube from 2015-2017, and the comment section will present you with a great divide between the "SGP fell off hard" camp and the "SGP is still the great trap messiah the world needs, but doesn't yet deserve" camp.
This brings us to this EP/Mixtape thing, Blackland Radio 666 Pt. 2. This is not his most recent release, as a matter of fact it came in the first half of 2016, a bit over a year ago. I was sitting in a meeting, and while ignoring the subjects discussed, I was eyeing at my phone looking at the Soundcloud notifications pop up as each track from this mixtape was being uploaded 1 by 1. I just wanted to get home quickly and listen. SGP is known to drop a lot of random tracks, often produced by others, but this was a new tape full of new tracks, nearly completely self produced. Not to mention it was titled as a sequel to his classic mixtape from 2011. Being such a fanboy, I was excited all the way home, straight to my couch, headphones quickly to my ears. And what did I get from this release? Exactly what I wanted from SGP.
What is there here in terms of lyrical prowess? Not much. You came to the wrong place if you expected some conscious lyrics, or even technical delivery. What you get here are just laid back, careless-sounding slurs nonchalantly threatening to take your life using different sentences to convey the same message. Another essential motif in SGP's lyrics are mixing in details of his extravagant sex life in between all his violent threats. No one is going to give SGP an award for his poetry, but in this context the rapping serves its purpose. And if you ask me, no one sounds quite as good on an SGP beat as SGP himself, which leads us to the instrumentals.
What makes this record really shine is, as expected from SGP, the production. He produced every track on here, except for Better Dayz which was handled by his BMB associate Loko Los (BMB is his new collective of rappers and producers). All the beats share the similar vibe of menacing, drugged ambience. There are no typical hard hitting trap beats here, just a lot of very well executed cuts of darkness. Even considering his own projects prior to and after this one, there is no album out there with this production style. He's always had similar elements of lo-fi, chopped & screwed, dark and drugged beats throughout his career, but he has never ceased to keep up with the times and regurgitate current trends into his own twisted vision of what he thinks hip hop should sound like. As mentioned earlier, his lazy rapping style fits perfectly with the production style.
It is important to note that the second to last track, "So Icey Goth Laflexico's," while produced by SGP, features rapping from fellow BMB member Chxpo and Goth Money member Black Kray. SGP, despite ensuing beefs, always had a good ear for who he should endorse and support. Chxpo, back in the day often considered "a more retarded sounding Chief Keef," has proven his versatility and character over 30 of 5-9 track EPs since early 2016, and he shows his aggressive side on this track to great effect with the dark instrumental. Black Kray, on the other hand, while being my personal favorite rapper coming out of all this underground trap stuff, isn't the type known for gangsterism and aggression but instead for quirkiness and a unique delivery, so his verse here comes as a surprise when it flows so perfectly after Chxpo's verse. Their styles are very different, but seem to be a match made in heaven. Black Kray doesn't fail to deliver his usual intriguingly unique bars, despite a different emotion backing it.
That about closes it up. Some may find this tape boring, might see it as melting together with no distinguishing tracks, but from my point of view it does what it is trying to do well, and that is to give you that perfect soundtrack to vibe out to when you're doing something bad (whatever that may represent for you) or just for relaxing and exploring beautiful dark aural textures that SGP has delivered. If you listen to artists like Future or Chief Keef solely for lyrical content and not for vibes, you are probably lying to yourself because trap rap is all about that ego-inflating, nihilistic vibe. SpaceGhostPurrp will never be mainstream, and even if he had the opportunity, he'd probably f u c k it up for himself before it could happen. He has made himself unmarketable. But in my opinion? His influence has infected the sound of trap music along with other influential producers like Lex Luger. Like the guy's negative personality or not, this is one of the few artists people will talk about and admire when looking back on trap rap from the 2010s in the decades to come, I can bet my life on that.
