King Louie's Drilluminati is the most high profile single-artist mixtape to come out of the Chicago drill scene since it exploded into the mainstream over last summer. It's a weird spot for Louie (or, for now, "King L," at least until Epic Records sorts out some trademark issues with another artist) to be in, not only because of its the tape's nature, but because at this point he doesn't have much in common artistically with Chief Keef and most of the other rappers he's commonly mentioned alongside.
While Louie was tied in with the drill scene before anyone outside of Chicago even knew it existed, he's never totally fit in with it. For one, at age 24, he's seven years older than Keef, which in this young scene almost counts as a generational gap. But more importantly, while Keef, his Glory Boys crew, and the ever-growing number of rappers imitating them project the image of dead-eyed sociopaths, Louie's always been a hedonist first and a street tough a far-off second--his long-awaited major label debut's been through at least a year's worth of delays, and it's still called Dope & Shrimp.
As a mixtape released between a rapper landing a deal and the release of his first "official" album, Drilluminati is intended to fulfill several important functions. One is to sustain interest in King L between the signing and the arrival of a retail product, which is increasingly difficult to do. The other is to prove that he's ready to make the jump from the mixtape circuit to a much bigger arena. Kanye West's shout out to Louie in his remix of Keef's "I Don't Like," which boomed inescapably from car windows and teenagers' cellphones last summer, did the heavy lifting in terms of sustaining interest. But Drilluminati acquits itself nicely in the second respect.
King Louie's been waiting for years to get a chance to establish himself as a rap-world big dog, and on Drilluminati he goes out of his way to invite comparisons with the biggest dog currently running, Rick Ross. The fact that he named the opening track "Rozay Flow" makes it unmistakable, but its typically supersized operatic beat by Ross mainstays J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League (who also produced the similarly Ross-ish "Feeling Like a Billion Bucks") would have been a pretty serious tip-off by itself. And while his lyrics include a fair share of gun talk (although maybe not so much as to justify the grim, bullet-ridden cover art), Louie spends significantly more time assuring us of his aptitude for spending money frivolously, something that Ross proven an Olympian talent for.
Louie seems to understand that, if he's going to make Rick Ross-level paper, it won't be by copying Rick Ross' style-- and he doesn't need to, anyway. His flow has the weird anarchic energy that you used to pick up in Ludacris verses and, these days, are more likely to find on something featuring 2 Chainz. He combines that energy with the clipped, gunfire-like enunciation of a Chicago drill rapper-- and when he finds his pocket, it feels like getting on the right beat at the right time is the only thing between him and pop radio.
A few tracks get partway there. "My Hoes They Do Drugs" has verses from Pusha T and Juicy J, and DJ Pain 1's slo-mo synth psychedelia bears a squinting resemblance to Juicy's "Bandz a Make Her Dance", although its single entendre lyrics are maybe too on the nose even for a pop audience. Louie and producer Hearon Trackz work extremely well together on "My Niggaz", as Trackz provides a creepy minimalist beat decorated with blaring, Inception-style brass that Louie comes at with what's probably his strongest performance on the album. Even the requisite bedroom song, "Bandz Up", featuring an ostentatious hook from the R&B singer Leek, is surprisingly decent.
Things get even more interesting on two songs in particular. "2 Pair", produced by Sonny Digital, takes a giddy synth loop and a rap from Louie at his most compellingly louche, and proceeds to pound it into your head and refuses to let up. The track should make listeners either wild out with abandon or dive for the stereo's off switch. And the previously released "Val Venis", with its rotund beat by the gifted Chicago producer C-Sick and an instantly memorable, infinitely enjoyable tongue-tying vocal hook, is something out of an A&R's dream. If anything on Dope & Shrimp matches it, Louie might just end up as big as he thinks he is.
