Under slightly different circumstances, Blu might’ve been a star. In 2009, following years of increasing buzz and work alongside the likes of J Dilla, the Los Angeles rapper inked a deal with Warner Brothers that included not just music but films for each of his forthcoming records. But a familiar tale of major-label woe followed, culminating in a sort of pyrrhic victory: Frustrated or jaded, Blu allegedly leaked his major-label opus, NoYork!, at Rock the Bells in 2011 and has since burrowed into the underground, releasing a steady string of small-budget, lo-fi albums. At last, though, he appears ready to offer a proper follow-up to NoYork!, even if A Long Red Hot Los Angeles Summer Night doesn’t sound like the record you’d expect from an underground rapper with a bent toward experimentation. An ambitious, slickly produced throwback, Red Hot taps Blu’s reserves of nostalgia and civic pride.
This isn’t the first time Blu has tried to make a record like this: 2014’s Good to Be Home attempted back-to-basics West Coast rap. But it lacked cohesion, exacerbated by a perpetually murky mix. Still, it now feels like a trial run for Red Hot, which addresses the previous problems while retaining the core conceit. This album works in conversation with iconic LA rap records of the previous three decades, from Regulate...G Funk Era to Madvillainy. It is Blu’s most ardent attempt to embed himself within that lineage. And if you’re hoping to make a West Coast classic but your relationship with Madlib is strained, you could do worse than enlist his younger brother, producer Oh No. Working from a shared love of dusty samples and technical rapping, the two traditionalists are entirely in sync.
The sheer conviction with which Blu delivers his vision here sets Red Hot apart from its revivalist peers and Blu’s own past. Not a single second feels wasted, as Blu crams a cascade of syllables into every available space. He raps furiously, wielding more energy and focus than at any point since his hungry debut, 2007’s Below the Heavens. Inspired by the narrative settings of The Chronic and Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, Blu weaves a story that reads like a paean to a disappearing metropolis, creating a real sense of place over these 17 tracks. Blu’s Los Angeles is filled with tense moments, suspicious looks, and flashes of violence, a city where encroaching gentrification exists somewhere over the horizon and danger lurks around every corner.
As you might expect from a rapper who managed to finesse a film deal, these pieces are cinematic in sound and scope. With descending keys and autoharp stabs, “Stalkers” conjures a film noir score, as Blu and Donel Smokes breathlessly trade bars like they’re in a rap battle. Unfortunately, Blu mars the throwback stance with a homophobic slur—inexcusable in 2019, regardless of what decade you’re emulating. “Murder Case” interpolates Snoop Dogg’s “Murder Was the Case” to tell the story of the protagonist’s downfall, while guest emcees play the roles of Blu’s new cellmates in “Jail Cypher,” sharing stories and advice.
The album’s most theatrical moment arrives with a two-track centerpiece, as tightly scripted as a scare in a horror movie. The interlude “Champagne” mimics the sort of major-label-mandated “song for the ladies” that was so omnipresent on 1990s rap records, but it cuts off abruptly as “The Robbery” begins. Blu and Oh No milk the jarring transition for everything it’s worth. Over little more than a palm-muted guitar and snares that sound like drumsticks hitting metal trash cans, Montage One and TriState narrate a robbery as it unfolds, vying to deliver the best rap-nerd pun while they’re at it. “So take it off slow, nigga, run the jewels/Another rap group? Nah, I mean chains and shoes,” TriState growls.
NoYork! hinged on buzzing chiptune production, forward-looking for its time. But A Long Red Hot Los Angeles Summer Night is willfully out of step with contemporary hip-hop, rendering a world where New York and L.A. remain rap’s only gravitational centers. That kind of wishful thinking might not win over many new listeners, but Red Hot makes a strong case for Blu and Oh No as two of the most dedicated West Coast zealots working. Blu clearly stopped paying any mind to others’ idea of success a long time ago; he now sounds all the better for it.
