There’s a canon of American novels that are either going out of style or already have: books by Roth, Ford, and Exley about underachieving men watching shadows creep across the living room. These characters like to consider themselves misanthropes, but they’re actually a pretty good time. Wielding disdain like a weapon, they voice the sort of harsh truths that go unsaid in healthy friendships and workplaces, their sensitivity rendering them at once vulnerable and dangerous. They drink, they argue, and they don’t abide bullshit because they don’t have the incentive.
Strip away the ambient misogyny and mediocre-white-guy entitlement, and you’d be left with a narrator like Kipp Stone. A quixotic, long-winded malcontent in the tradition of Devin, Masta Ace, and Chris Orrick, the Ohio rapper favors dour, voice-driven plotlessness, shaking his head to see whatever falls out. “Staying optimistic is exhausting,” he sighs in the opening bar of “Manic,” the first track from his new EP Faygo Baby. Like his fictional counterparts, Stone is a self-aware raconteur, but being in on the joke is a hollow victory. “The feeling of not feeling good enough was slowly killing me/And my dislike for envy turned me ’to my biggest enemy,” he rhymes on “Bravado,” which details insecurity rooted in his appearance and childhood.
Stone’s last outing, 2020’s HOMME, was a rewarding if occasionally labored listen, featuring such cheerful refrains as “People Be Trash,” “Jobs Be Trash,” and “World Be Trash.” While he continues to probe the disappointments of early adulthood on Faygo Baby, the warm arrangements make it a surprisingly amiable affair. With its languid tempo, wah-wah guitar, and digitized percussion, “Thoughts to Expand On” evokes Mike Dean and N.O. Joe’s layered production from Rap-A-Lot Records’ golden age. A blunted, off-kilter ambiance almost masks the intricacy of Stone’s compositions, yet his devotion to craft is evident at virtually every turn: subtle beat switches, nested choruses, double-tracked harmonies, and double-entendre punchlines.
Three of Faygo Baby’s seven tracks are self-produced, but it’s primarily a vocal showcase, Stone volleying between chatty monologues and an array of sing-song deliveries. When the subject matter turns grim, these theatrics maintain a lively, unpredictable atmosphere. On “Get Myself Together,” Stone races through knotty rhyme patterns for four or eight bars at a time, casting them aside in favor of increasingly complex schemes; when he finally pauses for the hook, it’s like a well-deserved water break. “Stay Down” is the project’s technical coup de grace, pivoting between breakneck raps and soulful crooning with each beat drop. The format would resemble a talent show medley in less tactful hands, but Stone’s easy transitions evince Z-Ro and Trae’s bluesman instincts.
For all the time Stone spends in his head, Faygo Baby makes a compelling case for his brand of cynicism: he’s able to poke fun at himself, and sometimes the world really is trash. What’s enticing about the record—particularly coming from a 30-year-old artist with a few albums under his belt—is that his years of rap-as-therapy finally seem to have placed him on the verge of a personal breakthrough. A mid-track ad-lib on “Manic” could double as a mission statement: “Be content, think abundantly, you can never be lonely/Never be hungry, be worthless, or not deserving of some kind of peace/I’m protecting mine by any means.” At its best, Faygo Baby plays like more of a motivational guide than a moody diary, with a narrator eager to make peace with his shortcomings. The loudest critics are usually the ones who care the most.
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