MUSIC

Denzel Curry Conjures His Hometown on "ZUU"

The young rapper captures Carol City on his newest album, revealing a kind of origin story with captivating production and a confident narrative presence.

Denzel Curry's newest album is a wild voyage through Carol City, texturing his hometown with his eclectic charisma.

The 24-year-old Miami rapper's latest release, ZUU, offers the crushing beats and gnashing delivery he's known for, brandishing brags as both shields and swords over the album's darkly motorized soundscape. But ZUU is equal parts rowdy hometown loyalty and clear-eyed contemplation. The album's tracklist turns Carol City into a stage for Curry to speak on violence, success, celebration, and survival.

This past month, Curry's lead singles "RICKY" and "SPEEDBOAT" set the tone for ZUU with their jigsaw sound and their defiant hooks, but the way ZUU fills out that tone is what gives the album its weight. The production, headed by Australian duo FNZ and featuring touches from Charlie Heat and Tay Keith, mixes siren-like trills with moody electronica over a constant trap beat, which expands and contracts to allow ZUU to switch from introspection to raucous headbanging and back. "WISH," "CAROLMART," and "P.A.T." convey the hustle and struggle that delivered Curry to the good life: He won't let the listener forget what he came out of—"I got a gold plaque, shit, I came from dodging hollowpoints" he raps on "AUTOMATIC"—but it's not really a story of escape.

Instead, it feels like Curry is re-engineering the world that shaped him in a corrosive, tightly-wound half-hour, complete with his experimental, punk-trap-weirdo aesthetic. The line "Fuck a Pop Tart, we carry toasters for real" from the Rick Ross-assisted "BIRDZ" works double-duty as a warning shot and just bizarre imagery. All throughout, Curry's peculiar ferocity shines through.

ZUU isn't a one-to-one representation of Carol City; rather, the city provides the fabric of the album. Denzel Curry has put together a cohesive album with a palpable sense of location, assured in its braggadocio in the way any good hip-hop project should be. Listening to him conjure up his home in his verses is arresting and another promising chapter in the rapper's prolific discography.

ZUU

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Let's Not Be (feat.)-Obsessed

(feat. Me)

Earlier this month, Drake jumped on a song by a mostly unknown Memphis rapper. The song is now one of the most popular in the country. Two weeks later, its music video has over 20 million hits on YouTube, almost 30 million plays on Spotify, et cetera et cetera. Now BlocBoy has a feature in XXL. Articles like "BlocBoy JB is now in the running to become America's next top rapper" from The Fader have begun to pop up around the internet. Suffice to say that, as a result of one song feature, this persons life has changed forever.

Drake is so powerful, it's creepy. Few people on Earth without "CEO" or "President/Prime Minister" in their title have a greater influence over large populations of people as he does. You'd be hard pressed to find more than a few hip-hop artists of this generation who've come up without the help of a Drake cosign. He hopped on "Tuesday" and created iLoveMakonnen, remixed "Tony Montana" and out came Future, gave "Versace" a verse and helped birth Migos. It's amazing to think back now on his 2012 "Club Paradise" tour, which featured such up-and-coming rappers as Kendrick Lamar and A$AP Rocky as opening acts. Today, that same show would cost you an arm and a leg, then your other arm and your other leg too if you purchase secondhand.

Cosigns and song features long precede Drake, and hip-hop was on a track towards the mainstream even before he entered the set of 'Degrassi'. But in a music space where a single artist can vault another artist to nationwide (even worldwide) fame solely on the basis of a single guest appearance, it makes sense that features have become comparably as significant to a song's success as the quality of the music itself. It's why you'll see weak album tracks like "White Sand" (Migos feat. Travi$ Scott), "Lil Baby" (2 Chainz feat. Ty Dolla $ign) and "Relationship" (Young Thug feat. Future) over-performing their superior counterparts—in this case, songs like "Countin", "Open it Up" and "Me or Us", respectively. Furthermore, in an environment where songs often gain popularity in proportion to the number of famous people involved, it makes commercial sense for musicians to pair up more often, regardless of actual artistic considerations.

At first this was all really cool. "Watch the Throne" put together the game's two biggest names, and it couldn't have been more hyped. Years later it happened again, with "What a Time to be Alive". Of course, both albums turned out to be slightly underwhelming—good but not great, and of lesser quality than any of the involved artists' individual works. What were the lessons learned? Perhaps that putting two artists together isn't simple arithmetic, if you're a listener. Or, if you're a label, that a collaborative album of enough star power can sell regardless of quality.

In 2017, it felt like we learned the second lesson but not the first. There was the 21 Savage-Offset album which was pretty good, and the Travi$ Scott-Quavo tape that was supposed to be even better but ultimately turned out worse. Metro Boomin' and Gucci Mane put in a solid project with a couple of certified bangers, but Young Thug's mixtape with Future was nt worth a second play through.

I think it's great that rappers these days are friends, and the violence and territorialism of the 90's isn't really around anymore. And I'll admit I'm part of the problem here: when the hype machine starts rolling on, say, the rumored Migos-Young Thug tape, I'm right up on it. I'd also never presume to tell anyone else what to listen to. But maybe we could do more to reward quality of music, rather than this additive fame factor, by being aware of ourselves.

BlocBoy is better than Drake on "Look Alive". We're at the point now where that sort of thing really doesn't matter.

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