Shaudy Kash is a byproduct of a kinship between Detroit and the Bay Area that dates back to the Great Migration and lives on through their respective rap scenes. With shared foundations in funk and soul, rappers in both regions have long spoken of a bond that extends beyond words. “Through spirit and through blood there is a connection through Oakland and Detroit,” Oakland legend Too $hort has said. Detroit’s FMB DZ agrees: “It’s like we cousins man.”
The 23-year-old Shaudy was raised around Detroit’s 6 Mile Road, but grew up on the music of Bay Area natives E-40, Spice 1, and Mac Mall. (One of his biggest songs to date is a 2021 remix of E-40’s 1995 classic “Dusted ’n’ Disgusted.”) Shaudy’s own casual and conversational rap flow is not unheard of out West, but it’s most directly influenced by hometown hero Babyface Ray. Similar to Ray, Shaudy is usually laid back, though he can up the energy when he needs to. What separates him from his Detroit inspirations is a lyrical perspective that wouldn’t be out of place on a mid-’90s West Coast posse cut: Darkness is in the air but the focus is on slice-of-life stories about fly women, fast money, and hanging out. His best moments recall the feeling of watching more lighthearted John Singleton fare, like the road trip scenes in 1993’s Poetic Justice.
Game Time is Shaudy Kash’s third mixtape of the year, and unlike the other two, its songs aren’t connected by theme or sound: February’s Ghetto Heartthrob featured eight songs about being such a ladies’ man that it’s a hassle and May’s On the Yeah Side was all calmly delivered rhymes over producer Topside’s smokiest grooves. The 12 tracks on this latest tape range from hard-hitting and aggressive to chill and reflective. Shaudy sounds most comfortable when he’s both engaged and distracted, as if you’re on a midday cruise with an old friend who is filling you in on what they’ve been up to.
His chronicles are small in scale and rarely sound exaggerated, which makes them feel genuine. “She like how I talk, how I speak/I’m a dog, she a freak/Give her a call, no two thoughts involved, she come to me,” he raps breezily about a sweet friends-with-benefits situation on mixtape highlight “You See Me.” Then, over the woozy melody and ticking hi-hats, he recounts how it went wrong. He kept sleeping around but she wanted more; he shrugs off the split with slightly performative indifference. It’s not quite emotionless, but the burnt-out monotone vocals add a wrinkle to his storytelling. On “No Stretch,” he plays it cool with a new fling, but every now and then a strain in his voice signals agitation or boredom. His ramblings about trust issues on “Real vs. Fake” would be basic out of context, but he delivers them so naturally that they sound thoughtful.
When the beats take on a darker edge, as on Game Time’s first half, they cloud Shaudy’s conversational style (except for “Matt Hardy,” where the flow is so sharp and easygoing that it works anyway). Still, the songs are short and the duds drift by innocuously, which isn’t always a good thing, because a lot of the better tracks don’t last long enough. They’re missing second verses, or at the very least extensions of existing ones, giving them the incomplete feel of snippets. On “The World Is Mines,” Shaudy smoothly rides a Nas sample, then throws in the towel not long after the one-minute mark. “Yes Yes Yall” combines signature Detroit shit talk with silky Bay Area wordplay, but if you wait for the intensity to ramp up, you’ll be waiting the whole minute and a half. A fleshed-out version of Game Time could have elevated the mixtape from a standout in the Shaudy Kash catalog to a potential spot on Detroit rap’s annual shortlist.
