Fake For Real

Let's talk about manicure. The males among you might ignore it, but there are two kinds of false nails: those made of gel, and those made of acrylic. The former have benefits: they look natural, and they are shinier. The latter, though, are more robust, and they are cheaper. These two kinds of fingernails, also, are socially significant. While the first category is associated with the rich, the other, also characterized by its bad chemical odor, is favored by lower class people, and the African-Americans. It smells like the 'hood. Such, actually, is the main theme on "Acrylic", the song: on a minimalistic beat, the smell of acrylic is a starting point for describing a world made of tricks, police controls, and single-parent families.

Queen Key is the embodiment of rap's specific take on feminism. Instead of desexualizing women, she talks about her lust, loudly and proudly. Her approach, however, is different from the one CupcaKke, her Chicago colleague, opted for. Ke'Asha McClure is not that frontal and pornographic, she goes the humorous way, with a raspy voice that sounds older than she is. To male rappers who like to say "suck my dick", she answers Eat my Pussy with her last EP, the very project aimed at accelerating her career, now that she joined Machine Entertainment Group.

It's been a while since a buzz started around OMB Peezy. Originally from Mobile, Alabama, but settled in Sacramento since he was 12, he featured since 2016 with the likes of Nef the Pharaoh or Yhung To, and he attracted the attention of a few others. E-40, indeed, invited him to join his Sick Wid It label. And he is also part of Lyor Cohen's new stable, 300. It took time, though, before he recorded a proper project. Heralded for months, Loyalty over Love was released only now. Prior to it, he only had side-projects: an average Humble Beginnings EP, produced by Cardo, and earlier this year, Young and Reckless, a mixtape with Sherwood Marty. This teamwork with the Baton Rouge rapper, though, was more than just an appetizer.

By 2011, just when his regional musical style started buzzing outside of Chicago, BlockOnDaTrack, a drill music beatmaker, decided it was time to offer a feminine voice to this virile and aggressive hip-hop subgenre. He convinced his cousin Kiara Johnson - a student trying to make a living out of a waitress job at McDonalds, who had never thought she could be a rapper - to record a song with him. This would result into "I Need a Hitta", a success with the local Chicago youth, and it would lead to another one, "Ridin' Around and Drillin'", which caught the attention of King Louie. Subsequently, the drill music veteran asked the young woman to join his own Lawless Inc. imprint, and he participated to her most famous and defining banger : "Pop Out". Thus started the career of Katie Got Bandz, who released afterwards a series of mixtape, and became the undisputed queen of drill.

To complement its new book published in May 2017, Mixtapes (French only), Fake For Real is sharing its own selection of mixtapes. Focusing exclusively on Northern American hip-hop, and on projects released from 2000 through 2015 (i.e. not in a time when mixtapes were, well, actual mix-tapes), these 100 records are not the same as those listed in the book. Quality prevailed here, over representativeness.

The history of rap cannot be told, without a strong focus on mixtapes. Originally compilations of existing songs, recorded and mixed by DJs on audiocassettes, they became over time real albums, distributed on the Internet, sometimes for free. A core component of the hip-hop culture since its very beginnings, they have been, sometimes, more impactful and higher quality than official albums. After relating the surprising journey of the rap mixtape, through its multiple changes, this book reviews a selection of 100 gems, released by well-established rappers like 50 Cent, Cam'Ron, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, or more recent ones like Future, Earl Sweatshirt, Danny Brown, Freddie Gibbs, Action Bronson, Young Thug or Migos.

A close look at the main rappers in the early 2010's, will show that all were not newcomers. The obvious example, of course, was 2 Chainz. Tauheed Epps had to pass his 30th birthday, indeed, to become a hip-hop figurehead. But prior to this, he had a career. He'd been part of Ludacris' label, Disturbing tha Peace, as one half of Playaz Circle, a duo with his friend Dolla Boy. These two even had some success around 2007, with the single "Duffle Bag Boy", featuring a Lil Wayne in his heyday. After two albums, however, their days came to an end, and 2 Chainz had to reinvent himself as a solo artist. And he did it smartly: he chose a new alias, the previous one, Tity Boi, being a bit embarrassing; he used his address book to collaborate with first-class rappers; and he became one of the ambassadors of trap music, displaying a rather generic kind of it, but in a pleasant and goofy way.

By the end of the naughties, almost two decades after the beginnings of his own Three 6 Mafia, and after the career apotheosis his Academy Award and the success of "Stay Fly" had been, Juicy J decided to focus on his solo career. He released a few albums, like Hustle Till I Die in 2009, and Stay Trippy in 2013, but also several mixtapes, including both editions of Rubba Band Business, two collaborative works with Lex Luger. By requiring the help of a producer sixteen years younger than he was, the guy behind Waka Flocka's and Rick Ross' latest bangers, the Memphis veteran surely wanted to demonstrate that he was aging well; and indeed, he was.

There was a time when, by the end of the naughties, rap music seemed to turn into the new international pop. It was mixing more and more, indeed, with other genres like rock, or electronica. A few notorious rappers were leading the trend, like Kanye West, Kid Cudi, and later on Drake; and of course we could talk about the hit machine Black Eyed Peas, originally a pure hip-hop band, had turned into. Another man went into that direction, though in a more hipster way. With his fashion victim looks, Theophilus London, a New-Yorker of Trinidadian descent who would be actively sponsored by Kanye West, actually looked like a hipster fantasy: as a matter of fact, the 2011 edition of the Cannes Film Festival would love him.

It's never been easy for a woman to find her way into the rap game. First, she had to fight hard to become an equal to the frequently sexist male rappers. And then, she had to deal with her rivals; the audience, or the industry, curiously, always wanted just one female star per generation. And then, once all of this is achieved, any female rapper needed to position herself against the many stereotypes about her kind. She had to decide if she was a tomboy, or a bad bitch, or an R&B sentimentalist. Despite these many obstacles, however, many made it. Females matter, in hip-hop, as demonstrated by our selection of outstanding projects.