still,
life goes on without it
still,
real ni**as do somethin' about it-
Smash Brothers doin' somethin' about it"
That's from Illy by S.A. Smash.
HEY are you listening? I said, You Can Still Download The Songs. Download them thru the link w/ the song title- the MediaFire link. Easy Breezy.
Camu Tau was half of S.A. Smash (with Metro) and he died this May. He was a sick, sick rapper with a unique style. His gruff and fierce style was helped out (on the S.A. Smash album) by fittingly on-point production from El-P and PRZM (who also died recently).
He also did an album with Cage that's supposed to be pretty good, but the album I know best is "Smashy Trashy".
"Smashy Trashy" is a good album, all the way through. What is unusual about Smash shows up right away- "seen you acting up, from the bottom of a plastic cup": Smash get drunk, get WASTED (see [How'm I gonna] "Get Home"). Most rappers don't get wasted - they don't rhyme about it at least - but why not? because rappers have to act (act) hard, all the time. Remember, like Fat Joe told you:
"Said my ni**as don't dance,
we just pull up our pants and,
Do the Roc-away.
Now lean back, lean back, lean back, lean back..."
But Smash ain't fronting- if they wanna dance, they gon' dance. And if they wanna drink, then they are getting right ready ripped. I mean, they have a track called "A.A.", nahmean?
And it's Natty Ice, Steel Reserve, not Moet and Kris: so they're real ("You seeing where I'm layin', and you sayin' I'm making it up?"). Anyhow, they might get splitfaced and they might dance, lose their keys, chase groupies (ugly or not: a thug doesn't care, I guess).
Oh yeah, they're thugs too though- but weird thugs. Like misanthropic sadists, not just rough to avoid getting hassled, or rough to own a corner. No, they threaten you with weird shit like getting a "shovel in the face", chasing a punch to your face with a glass of stout (also to your face), and so on.
Cos enough of this same-old-same-old "thugg"ery. Rappers talking about guns you don't use: it's experiencing diminishing returns these days, right? So Smash keep the violence-- and we keep the little thrill from thinking about some UltraViolence-- but flip it into something more interesting.
More like this (from "Clout.mp3"):
"now that everybody rhymes,
it's time to battle for souls,
start a single-file line and pay me after the show...
the monster and we conquered half of the globe
with an attitude like that'll get you clapped in the dome
we be the menace, we like the sound of shatterin bones...
my intentions are infected and I'll pass it along
You askin if the passion is gone?
Motherfuck you and that watered-down rappin you on
pipe ni**as smoke crack to this one, fake ni**as practice packing a gun
the aggravated immigrant, African son,
smoke a blunt with you, punk, put a stab in your lung"
Etc.
(see how the rhyme scheme switches from the sound "oh" to "own" to "on" to "un"? Not Easy: Guys can flow, right?
And if you're rapping about new thangs, you should have some new-sounding beats under you: S.A. Smash produced 10 of the tracks, getting serious help from El-P on a few others. ("Illy" is produced by him.) The beats lurch around- makes sense, they were probably wasted when they hit the studio- jumbled and dense.
Guitar comes in and out, but this isn't rock and rap- that never works, does it. No, but here, the guitars=gutter. You know El-P's style, and the album has that feel, and that level of quality too, no matter which producer did which track. Yeah, El-Producto did "Illy", but that other dope jam "Slide on 'Em (Escapade).mp3", which has a truly awesome rhyme on it (by Vast Aire), that jam was a S.A. Smash production.
Well, Camu's gone. Here's a few tracks, by him solo.
Told you he could spit...
Illy.mp3 S.A. Smash
Clout.mp3 S.A. Smash
Slide On 'Em (Escapade) Ft. Vast Air.mp3 S.A. Smash
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