Listening Party: Firecrotch and Absolute 'Da General'

Here’s the gimmick: Each week, we’ll pick two local bands — an opening act and a headliner — link to a site where you can listen to their songs for free, then ask you to spend a few moments of your precious time to tell us what you think about them. Some may be great, others may be mediocre or awful — that’s for you to decide — all we ask is that you listen with an open mind.

Opening Act: Firecrotch

I suppose I should start by saying I don’t really like Firecrotch’s music so much as I’m fascinated by what the existence of the music itself means. Here we are, a few months shy of the 30th anniversary of the release of The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” and the beginning of hip-hop as a force in popular culture, and in that relatively short span of time, the movement has touched all parts of American society. When Wonder Mike first put the classic words to tape “Hip hop, you don’t stop,” I wonder if he really understood that three decades later it not only wouldn’t have stopped, but that a guy in Inman, South Carolina, would be jokily rapping about MILFs.

Of course, let’s give Firecrotch his say …

“Just to remind everyone and to inform those who don’t know firecrotch mixtapes is a page made basically to just put up music me and my friends have fun making. We are not trying to be serious we are just trying to make yall laugh!”

It’s worth noting that those friends appear to include other Inman-based performers like Matt Young and Hedless, hinting that there’s almost a hip-hop enclave in that small town.

And with all that said, there’s very little reason to listen to Firecrotch. Not yet, at least. Sure, there are a few moderately funny lines in “Milf Music” and “Hood Kracker,” but that’s hardly an endorsement. The flow is weak, the beats are tepid, the writing is fundamentally lazy, the production is rough … I could go on, but I won’t. Sure, Firecrotch and crew aren’t “trying to be serious,” but they’re also not particularly trying to be entertaining, either.

So why am I writing about this music? Because, even though it’s not very good at present, there are things about it that show some promise. Those few moments of cleverness and humor I mentioned, in particular, are something worth building on. And while I’m not getting much out of this music, some people clearly are. “Milf Music” had, at the time of this writing, some 10,357 plays, meaning someone is clearly enjoying something about the music.

Imagine what would happen if Firecrotch had some flow and knew a little more about making beats? Or is he was trying to actually tell a story or make some kind of point with his rhymes? Imagine if he could not be “serious” by still manage to apply himself to the process of making a good track.

What I’m getting at is this: When Firecrotch starts taking his musical craft a little more seriously, the rest of us might just have a reason to start paying attention.

Headliner: Absolute Da General

Every so often, I get a note on MySpace asking me why I’m writing about a bunch of no-name musicians — specifically hip-hop performers — when I could be writing about someone who is actually considered relevant outside of the immediate area. Why am I not writing about Michael Blackley, better know as “Absolute ‘Da General,’” and his self-proclaimed goal of putting “Sparkle City on the map”?

The honest answer is that I have listened to Blackley’s work, but that I don’t really have all that much to say about it. He’s a very talented performer, he obviously has a good team behind him and his producers know how to play to his talents and construct good tracks for him to perform to. He’s operating on a very different level than most of the acts I generally write about here, and although it appears that he’s based in Spartanburg in a kind of ideological sense, most of his actual performing takes place in and around Atlanta.

I haven’t written a Listening Party about him for the same reasons I haven’t written one about The Belleville Outfit: They’re doing fine without my help.

But it recently occurred to me that while Blackley might be well-known in the local hip-hop community, his very existence might be off the radars of many of the Spark‘s readers, in much the same way that The Belleville Outfit’s existence might not be common knowledge for Blackley’s fans.

So, let’s start with the basics. If you’ve never heard of Absolute “Da General,” here’s a primer. It’s a 2007 video for the song “Sparkle City,” and it should demonstrate Blackley’s talent and relevance quite clearly.

As you can see, Blackley is a seriously talented and charismatic performer. And his work is clearly that of a professional working with professionals, and as such it’s really difficult to say much of meaning about it that you couldn’t find elsewhere.

His work is well-performed and well-produced. It wouldn’t be out of place on many regional hip-hop playing radio station, or as background music in a club. It’s exactly what it’s aiming to be: Mainstream-courting rap.

And, as such, I also find it kind of boring. It’s music that is catering to a certain set of listener expectations — the formula one needs to make a name in the rap market in and around Atlanta — and as such it’s not taking a lot of stylistic risks. There’s talent at work, obviously, but not many new or interesting ideas being explored. He’s making a product — a good one, perhaps — but not a particularly original one.

Now, it’s your turn. I’ve put my views out here on the digital page, but you can correct, amend, disagree, refute and rebut any and all of it by commenting in the field below. Notice something about the bands that I missed? Write a comment. I’ve had my say, now it’s all about you.