Alpoko Don, a rapper and singer from Greenville, South Carolina, joined Youtube about a year ago and started uploading music videos. (He originally posted as Dondada, but was asked to switch by another musician of the same name.) In his videos, the man born Randrickas Young sings soulfully, raps fluidly, and makes his barely-there beats by pounding them out on the railing of his front porch. His performances have proven compelling enough to net the videos about 3,000,000 views.
In December, Don dropped a mediocre mixtape, Plugged In, on which his formula was weakened by cheap-sounding, boilerplate beats. Most evidence of the tape has been scrubbed from the web, probably due to a lukewarm reception from those who were riding for him in the first place. But two months ago, Young released a more successful attempt to capitalize on his online popularity, one which brought back the novel, bare-bones beats that he clearly thrives on. The Ol’ Soul EP, a collection of new songs and YouTube favorites, is an arresting rap record, unique in its minimalist sound and bathed in the fingerprints of the South's musical history.
Don’s songs combine Southern rap, soul, and blues into a mix that at times recalls predecessors as disparate as Scarface, Rick Ross, Anthony Hamilton, Floyd Council, and Howlin' Wolf. The hooks of his best songs are rough dirges and frequently espouse simple, mournful themes like “life goes by so fast” or “this is all I know.” In his verses, he’s equal parts punch line rapper and storyteller, as comfortable rattling off jokes about the color of cocaine as he is taking on the part of the Almighty in the dialectic “Song to God (My Life)”. Apart from these occasional religious digressions, Don’s subject matter consists largely of by-the-book gangsterisms but his wit sets him apart, along with that distinctive voice, a rich, gravelly baritone, untrained and harrowing. On his single “All I Know”, the humming alone is intriguing enough to merit multiple listens.
By leaving beats almost entirely out of the question, Don demands the listener’s focus. His voice props up some of the weaker songs here-- “Street Life”, a “my girl is the streets” allegory would be a total cliché if it weren’t for its sung introduction. But his rapping can stand on its own, as demonstrated on “Gone Tomorrow”, a detail-heavy tale of an ambitious kid that balloons into a full-blown revenge epic.
Don is a natural dichotomy-breaker. His lyrical facility gives the lie to the stereotype of the monosyllabic Southern rapper even as his Greenville patois makes it obvious where he’s from. His rhyme patterns are reminiscent of a trap-rapper who’s been robbed of bombastic beats. And he professes to have a profound faith in God (saying in an interview that the best advice he can give to kids is to “stay prayed up”), but seemingly can’t resist glorifying the street life that got him sent to prison for eight years.
His uncomplicated approach to songmaking might make Alpoko Don seem like the antidote to music industry excess but his process isn’t quite as influence-free as one might think after seeing him sitting on the porch, creating music out of thin air. Those videos are sponsored by Young Jeezy’s clothing company, 8732 Apparel, and The Ol’ Soul EP was co-produced by Darrell “Digga” Branch, who has worked with Cam’ron, 50 Cent, and Jay-Z. Industry associations might be distasteful to those who have been riding for Don as a kind of rap Horatio Alger yet to be tainted by industry grime, but the music itself is hard to question: even his rework of Patti Labelle’s corporate soft-rock staple “If You Asked Me To” manages to sound gritty (and this is a song that was famously covered by Celine Dion.)
Don is most transfixing when you can see him work-- his are among the videos you’ll want to pull up whenever some idiot starts to question rap’s musicality. And it’s undeniable that the novelty of his approach contributed hugely to the success of his music videos. But if Don were some lousy amateur with a unique approach, his songs wouldn’t have the staying power that they do. Novelty eventually wears off but talent tends to stick in the mind, and it’s the latter that will keep The Ol’ Soul EP relevant longer than it takes for any gimmick to get old.
