One of the odd ironies of Don Q’s breakthrough mixtape, Corner Stories, was that it lacked both corners and stories. Don Q gestured at, alluded to, and cited a hardscrabble Bronx upbringing, but his throaty, accented rasp tended to be the only lasting impression. Everything else was lost in transit: narratives smoldered inside dry boasts, images withered on vines of florid internal rhymes, punchlines were oversold or undercooked. Don Q channeled fire but blew smoke.
Don Talk trades scene setting for character building and is just as feckless. The main problem is that Don Q isn’t a memorable character. His approach to rapping is blunt and functional. His raps work like conveyor belts, shuffling rhymes from here to there. He rarely relishes or harnesses words. Elaborate rhyme schemes are set up like hurdles and then dashed through mechanically. Every verse is a blitz, every feature is a flex. His idea of a personality is constant pantomime: the grandiosity of Rick Ross, the mise-en-scene of JAY-Z, the bounce of A Boogie, his fellow Bronxer and labelmate. Don Q knows the right signifiers but fails to channel their significance, for himself or the listener.
The beats drive home Don Q’s identity crisis. He favors exactly two production styles: lush, pensive lounge joints and booming, trap-tinged slappers. Functionally, this means that he’s either going deep or going in and he excels at neither. When he goes deep, he raps slower and emphasizes his husky voice. The twinkly arpeggios and looped strings on “Words of Wisdom” are Maybach Music kitsch. Title track “Don Talk” is built from the same template, and on it Don Q goes full paranoiac, questioning the loyalty of friends as he evokes cinematic opulence. When Don Q goes in, he pirates ad-libs and traffics in tropes. “True Or Not” is peppered with the growled overdubs of Young Dolph; “Puddle of Water” cribs multiple Future yelps; “Trap Phone” recruits 2016 Desiigner. Riffs and modulations of established styles have sparked some of rap’s most exciting turns, but Don Q is neither charting new territories nor deconstructing sounds. He’s just... here.
Don Q is a diminutive of Donald Quilio, but Don Q is clearly both a nickname and an ambition. The Don Q of Don Talk strives for boss-hood and respect; he wants to be a capo but a more interesting journey might have been self-discovery. Don Talk posits Don Q as self-made and weary from his come-up, but his music has no arc. There’s no real sense of what he’s been made from or into, where he’s come from, where he wants to go, or where he is. A decade’s worth of assorted rap battles and lo-fi home videos show a scrappy guy using rap to assert himself and goof off. There’s no guarantee that that guy is any more intriguing than the dull Don Q of Don Talk, but there was personality in his blemishes. What’s his corner story?
