Between the books, major magazine covers, pop-up stores, variety shows, and more co-signs than you can hurl a skate deck at, it's safe to say L.A. rap provocateurs Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All's basement days are long behind them. Or as OF member Mike G rhapsodizes on his new EP The Award Tour, "Went from Call of Duty missions to the center of attention." It's been a whirlwind year for the collective in general, but between anchoring tracks for Jay and Kanye to winning VMAs, it's easy to forget that Odd Future are largely made up of background figures, all with such varied rhyme and production styles that it can be hard to stand out from the pack. Mike G can probably relate-- his nocturnal flow and a preference for mood-driven beats has left him on the outside of most OF conversations. But still, G managed to find an audience with 2009's Ali, a mixtape that former Pitchfork staffer Tom Breihan called "something of a lost classic within the Odd Future catalog."
The Award Tour is the midpoint between Ali and G's proper debut, Gold, rumored to be out sometime next year. And while it doesn't diverge too much from his previous solo effort, it's clear that he's trying to make a name for himself outside of Odd Future: Save from keeping the production in-house (Syd the Kid, Hodgy Beats, and Left Brain contribute music) and the occasional reminiscence (see "Chevron") or shout out, The Award Tour is one of the rare OF releases that feels purposefully removed from the collective. It's a smart move for someone who has struggled to distinguish himself outside of this growing pop-culture juggernaut, and with his sandy-eyed demeanor, it's a crucial counter-balance to the crew's super-aggro approach.
The only problem is Mike G himself. Spin The Award Tour half a dozen times, and it's clear why the guy's so often been relegated to the background. As the cousin of West Coast legend Warren G, it's not hard to imagine Mike's ultra laid-back style being something of a genetic trait, but even two years after Ali, he still sounds like a rapper not only still trying to find his voice, but struggling with the basic mechanics. Maybe it's okay to give Mike G a pass because of the inherent charm associated with his zonked-out delivery, or because his raps oddly memorialize the halcyon days of early Odd Future, but his flow remains so stilted that he often isn't even afforded the luxury of simply blending in.
Either jamming too many words into a measure, or too few, he sounds in need of a metronome, his flat and direct observations sounding like unstable free-association raps, when they most clearly weren't intended to be. "Chanel" (which finds G in lothario mode) features some chintzed-out Euro-club signifiers which complement his drawl nicely, but watch him peacock by spitting in double-time and getting completely stranded trying to find a way back to his normal operational mode. Most of the time, he simply sounds lifeless and a little unfocused, which is especially hard to take when the content of his rhymes remain so plain and thin. Meanwhile, it leaves his production team to look more like enablers than anything else, offering what sounds like compartmentalized, simplistic, hand-me-down beats that G constantly finds himself inexplicably swallowed by.
But The Award Tour's biggest problem? Showcasing buddy Vince Staples for half the EP's 26 minutes. He appears on five of the seven tracks, including the Mike G-less "Michael Douglas" with "Gucci Gucci" co-writer Speak!, and where G comes off D.O.A., Staples is waiting to step in with personality and rhymes that practically crackle with life in comparison. Maybe he's a bit hung up on the played-out sort of violent juvenilia that first grabbed headlines for OF, but there's something about his verses on "Vicks" and "Award Tour" (both detail school shootings, suicide fantasies, and Staples' conflicted feelings about religion) that are compellingly reminiscent of Anthony Perkins' chat with himself at the end of Psycho. The demon-exorcising feels authentic and dynamic, and downright scene-stealing when propped up against our host.
Maybe Mike G just isn't a show-and-prove kind of rapper, and maybe he doesn't need to be. But you've got to offer your listeners something to sink their teeth into if you're going to follow, "More complex than architects with any amount of layers," with, "Life's a videogame, I'm controlled by the best player," and expect to get away with it. Gold might find G in a more ambitious headspace artistically-- while it sure isn't an engaging listen, there's nothing on The Award Tour that suggests he can't come into his own-- but this EP also seems doomed to be lost in the greater Odd Future catalog. Except this time, no one's going to mistake it for a classic.
