Flockaveli is for people who find M.O.P. too polite, Silkk the Shocker too relaxed, and Blaq Poet too introspective. Waka Flocka Flame is an unrepentant street-rap hardhead-- as much a descendant of New York aggro-thugs like DMX or Screwball as early 2000s southern club rappers. Producer Lex Luger provides most of Flockaveli's thunderous accompaniment, while a parade of no-name/street-fame character-rappers (plus, inexplicably, Wale) give the album the chaotic tone of a street brawl. But at the record's violent core, Waka Flocka Flame stands as a gangsta rap giant whose lack of range is more than made up for by his grizzled bark.
For 17 straight tracks, Flockaveli is a furious torrent of gangsta rap id. There are zero attempts at crossover, no R&B choruses (unless you count Roscoe Dash's rasp over Drumma Boy's ominous marching horn anthem "No Hands"). Certain songs jump out immediately-- especially rap-anthem-of-the-year contender "Hard in Da Paint". "Grove St. Party" subverts the record's adrenaline into a cocktail of intoxicated cockiness and tense creepiness-- a dark, twisted party jam. "For My Dawgs" turns the record's energy into a survivalist street anthem: "One lousy-ass bullet can't fuckin' stop me." Waka's reckless fatalism-- that sense of him teetering on a knife's edge-- is the part of his persona that best fits with the approach of the album's Makaveli namesake.
But it's the sound of the album that sticks out the most at first, a sonic barrage of uncontained hood aggression. The beats are confrontational, shredding up the template of early-2000s Atlanta and turning the remains into an overwhelmingly dense assault of hi-hats and gothic string pads. Along with gunfire effects and Waka's constant ad libs, these elements create a non-stop gut punch of aural adrenaline. Luger's production isn't far removed from the post-Jeezy trap sound of fellow Atlantans Shawty Redd and Drumma Boy-- in fact, he's a little less dexterous than the latter-- but it works perfectly with Waka's sledgehammer-subtle approach. His beats alternate between unrelentling repetition ("Bang") and unexpected, lurching drop-outs ("Hard in Da Paint").
But for all the credit given to Luger-- who, in fairness, has upped the bar for rap producers competing with the post-Tunnel nightclub gangster aesthetic-- it's Waka who gives this record its frenetic intensity. In gangsta rap's race to produce the hardest possible tracks, Waka seems intent on topping everyone, stripping street rap to its essential characteristics and distilling the genre into its purest form. But he's no traditionalist, either, avoiding the New York roughneck's reliance on older production styles. There are few attempts to integrate nuance or complexities, gray-scale morality, or introspection. Each track gives a new perspective on the same basic archetype, reducing gangsta rap to its building blocks: hypermasculine children of the drug trade, reckless fatalism, intensity, and physicality.
Anyone coming to this record expecting wordplay, or criticizing it for its lack thereof, is missing the point completely: Flockaveli thrives on Waka's fresh approach to the same generation gap-widening narrative that's driven street rap since before N.W.A. That doesn't mean he can't rap; instead, Waka sells on the way his personality bleeds through his vocals and phrasing, the way his voice rolls, "I'ma die for this, shawty, I swwweartogod," on "Hard in Da Paint", imprinting his vocals in the most memorable possible way: "Mizz-ayy management, shit, that my motherrr."
Which leads to the line that explains the entire record: "When my little brother died, I said, 'Fuck school.'" This one lyric summarizes the attitude of a record utterly unconcerned with authority and anyone else who gets in the way. It points to the unspoken undercurrent in gangsta rap that's usually mischaracterized as undirected underclass rage: Waka's aggression is the survivalist reaction of the powerless, directed toward the threats of the immediate environment. He knows his strengths and he plays to them, exactingly.
