The City On Fire

Danny Brown featuring Ab-Soul, Kendrick Lamar, and Earl Sweatshirt “Really Doe”

My favorite hip-hop is almost always little more than a series of rappers taking turns on a beat, especially if that beat has a creaky, dilapidated aesthetic. Blame the Wu-Tang Clan. All four verses in “Really Doe” are remarkable, and work as good minute-long primers on each rapper’s style. Kendrick shifts his vocal pitch and rhythm midway through his intricate verse; Danny Brown is typically squawky and eccentric; Earl Sweatshirt is gruff and sullen yet slightly smirky. Ab-Soul is the revelation here, maybe because he has the most to prove relative to these other guys who’ve already attained icon status. His verse sounds twice as hungry, and actually outdoes Kendrick’s in terms of wordplay and meticulous attention to technical detail. I particularly love the bit where he mentions Aleister Crowley and “the GOAT” within a few seconds but doesn’t really nudge you in a “see what I did there???” way to notice the play on occult iconography. And that’s the general vibe here – four very technically proficient rappers having fun with the track and refusing to dumb anything down.

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