(THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARS ON THE TWIN CITIES BLOG NEWEST INDUSTRY)
"We are more than the sum of our parts..."
Hello again, music fans!
It's election day and we thought it would be appropriate to do a write up on one of the most politically charged tracks to come out of the Twin Cities this year (which is really saying something). We put TCDroogsma back on the case and asked him to give us his thoughts on the first single from the new Guante & Big Cats! album You Better Weaponize.
TCDroogsma, what'd you think?
First things first, I'm not super familiar with the work of Guante & Big Cats! I know (and love) their single "The National Anthem" from a couple of years back. I'm also kind of familiar with Big Cats! production work. That track, "Get Gone" by Homeless, and "1" from his solo album For My Mother is pretty much the extent of my knowledge.
All that said, let's dig in to this new single.
The Twin Cities hip-hop scene has been wearing its politics on its sleeve all year long. "To Young Leaders" definitely has more in common with the anarchist vibe of We Don't Even Live Here than with the "we can fix this broken system" message of Mourning In America. Unlike the aforementioned "The National Anthem," which was more of a lamentation of a broken country, "To Young Leaders" is a cry to finish breaking what's already broken and start the rebuild.
Guante's MC style definitely has its roots in his career as a spoken word artists. It's not hard to imagine that this song would carry nearly as much weight even if it was presented a capella
"Remember, a poem is worth more than a prayer
A prayer is a quiet conversation
A poem is an incantation
A fireball from your fingertips
It's something out of nothing..."
To that end, the similarity between his rapping style and the style of Sage Francis (another MC with roots in spoken word) is clear. It becomes evident when, rather than a hook, the chorus of the song finds Guante abandoning his flow to speak directly to the listener, capping it off with the rallying cry, "You better recognize, you better weaponize..."
If the goal of the lyrics is to inspire anger at not only the political system, but at the capitalist American system that feeds our culture, mission wholeheartedly accomplished.
Big Cats! does his part to soundtrack this anger by digging deep in the low end. I don't mean to compare this song to "The National Anthem" again, but it's hard not to notice that, production-wise, "To Young Leaders" picks up where "The National Anthem" left off. That track was built around some dusty piano samples and those same sounds open this track.
However, when the piano drops out and the keyboards and bass come in, it's the aural equivalent of the feeling many people have felt over the last couple of years. No longer concerned with the dusty concept of "fixing the system" from within, the focused, pointed keyboards and fuzzed out bass indicate that the time for talk has passed and the time for action is now.
If "To Young Leaders" is indicative of the what we can expect from the rest of You Better Weaponize then this is going to be a banner year for righteous anger in hip-hop. Who says the Minnesotans are passive-aggressive?
Final Score - 4/5
You Better Weaponize, the new album from Guante & Big Cats! is out today and available via Strange Famous Records. They'll be playing at record release show November 9th at Hell's Kitchen.
Thanks to TCDroogsma for stopping by and giving us his thoughts. For more TCDroogsma he can be found on Twitter and/or Instagram (@TCDroogsma) or on his personal blog Flatbasset.
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