Gearing up for the release of Bossalinis & Fooliyones, rapper MondreM.A.N. (one half of the Main Attrakionz, along with partner Squadda B) told FACT, "We don't feel like dancing, we don't go to parties, and we don't make no party music." Following the trajectory of Main Attrakionz's career, which has produced a multitude of free solo and collaborative mixtapes hinged on celestial samples and irreverent rhymes, it's not a terribly surprising statement. Wedged somewhere between Bay Area peer Lil B's prolific and ever-expanding thought balloons and the spacey introversion of chillwave, "cloud rap" was viewed as the antithesis of party rap, a music that made little sense outside of a weed-fogged, wi-fi enabled bubble built for one.
This was a big part of cloud rap's appeal, but any music built on the fickle whims of the web is vulnerable. But on releases like their 2011 breakthrough 808s & Dark Grapes II and Squadda B's I Smoke Because I Don't Care About Death, Main Attrakionz proved to be relatable and able to adapt to new sounds. Here on their proper full-length debut, a sound in danger of stagnation has been brightened and reconfigured in appealing ways.
While it's as smoked-out, hedonistic, and vaguely introspective as their previous efforts, Bossalinis & Fooliyones at times sounds downright bombastic thanks to its embrace of earthly influences. Taking it to the club might be taking it a little too far, but the springy opener "Green on Sight" and the addictive "La Piñata" bring to mind house parties, parking lots, and late-night convertible joyrides. Squadda and Mondre put a lot of work into getting their unconventional sound noticed, and it's obvious as to why they would want to hold onto their outsider status. But it's hard for them to mask just how much fun they're having, and the feeling is infectious.
Main Attrakionz have never been great rappers, and sometimes that's a problem: "I can't complain I'm doin' my thing, I mean I'm in my lane/ I can't complain I'm steady getting' paid, I'm sippin' the drank," seems to be the motto. But thanks to a crack team of mostly unknown producers, the recurring themes of money, smoke, girls, and hustle are cast in a flattering light. Despite there being 13 producers spread over 17 tracks (Chicago space cadets Supreme Cuts and the ubiquitous Harry Fraud get two at-bats), Bossalinis & Fooliyones sounds sonically cohesive and consistent. The duo's laconic flows feel tailor-made for off-the-cuff game spitting, and tracks like highlight "Cloud Life" get a boost from producer Joe Wax's amorous slow-burn. "LFK" (which stands for "Lo-fi Kings") finds the two riffing on UGK and providing their own take on all things Houston. And Fraud, as if trying to provide a minimalist companion piece to current hit "Function", helps assist the hometown anthem single "Do It For the Bay".
Too bad that what follows marks a significant drop-off in quality. The problems start with "Superstitious", which features a usually reliable Zaytoven on auto-pilot and a phoned-in Gucci Mane verse. Tracks like "Love Is Life" and "Cloud Body" are boilerplate cloud rap, feeling lifeless against the harder-hitting material. Other songs simply suffer from being too corny (the melodramatic "Wings"), or too leaden ("Bury Me a Millionaire", which features name-drop puns that even Game wouldn't go near). The real problem might just be that, having been so mixtape-oriented for so long, Main Attrakionz haven't developed the necessary editing skills. By the time you get to "Wings", you still have 20 minutes left in a nearly 70 minute album.
Still, there's something obviously charming about Main Attrakionz. They're transparent and often entertainingly aloof-- in the same FACT interview, Mondre admitted to not even knowing what chillwave was. So Bossalinis & Fooliyones is a testament to honesty and effort. Here are two guys who clearly love to rap and work hard at it, taking a style they can call their own, and presenting it in a more user-friendly way. More often than not, they make it work.
