Fat Trel, despite his name, isn't all that fat. But the rising D.C. rapper is blessed with a classic "Fat Guy" personality, at least as defined by decades of frat-boy comedy stereotypes: On record, he comes off as generous, irrepressible, self-deprecating, and instantly likeable. With his big smile full of broken teeth, mangy facial hair, and scraggly dreadlocks, Trel cuts a memorable figure, and seems to know it: Like Rick Ross, he usually appears in videos shirtless. Also like Rick Ross, he pumps his music with an enormous sense of gusto, as if gangsta rap were an extended buffet and he were planning to plow right through it. You can practically hear him licking his chops before beginning a verse.
He is the polar opposite, in other words, of D.C.'s other hometown hero, Wale, despite having spent a year or two on Wale's Board Administration label. Wale is the type who could find things to grouse about in a VIP lounge; Fat Trel, meanwhile, remains a sunny presence even when he's talking about crushing your kneecaps. Trel released a slew of mixtapes, including high-water marks No Secrets and April Foolz, that mixed some local-D.C. flavors-- woodblocks and congos in the music, intensely regional references in the lyrics-- into standard street-rap songs, and then spiced them with his happily libidinous personality. Here's a typical Fat Trel line, from the otherwise-routine "girl-at-a-club" song "Angel": "When I met her she was dancing/ I was prancing around with a drink in my hand, all handsome." Trel's a guy who raps very often, and graphically, about visiting personal violence upon you: he is also perfectly willing to depict himself, on record, as "prancing."
Now that Trel has done what breakout stars inevitably do-- separating from Board Administration, striking out on his own-- his career is approaching the precarious divide separating hometown hero from national presence. In between these two points lays a chasm of mortification and pain: We watched Wale flail through this gauntlet for four years before he recovered his footing, utterly transformed, as a member of Rick Ross' Maybach Music Group. Trel's latest mixtape, Nightmare on E Street, bears some of the worrying marks of encroaching industry bullshit: a guest appearance by Diddy indentured servant and NYC-rap non-entity Red Cafe, for instance, a sure sign of major-label favor trading. But by and large, Nightmare is another generous helping of what made Trel noticeable in the first place.
For one, Trel remains a spectacular rapper, with a full and chesty voice and an elastic, invigorating delivery. You can hear him relishing the sound of his words: he's a great savorer of plosives, and his verses snap hard with internal rhythms: "Whippin it, baggin it, paper bag magic," goes the hook to "Paper Bag Magic", and to hear him utter this phrase just once is to feel it tattooed indelibly on your cortex. His ear for hooks is like that, and his fondness for chewy word sounds makes his verses almost as memorable. On "Geetchie" and the lurching "Deep in the Game", Trel's perpetual-motion flow lands unerringly on every sharp consonant, giving the impression of a Gucci Mane suddenly and miraculously cured of mush-mouth.
He is also savvy about splitting the tape's production between new names and the team who helped define his sound. He picks an uncharacteristically menacing beat from Big K.R.I.T. for "Swishers and Liquor", for instance, one that sounds like it would otherwise be more at home on a Juicy J tape, but also makes sure to make room for a beat from the D.C. production duo and old collaborators the Basshedz for "On Top of Your Girl". "Deep in the Game", from French Montana's secret-weapon producer Harry Fraud, strings a chopped-up Rick Rossbellow over some queasily burbling guitars. On tape highlight "Devil We Like", everything comes together: a mournful, muted beat produced by Boss Major; a wry sung chorus ("We pray to God, but it's the devil we like") and crisp, economical rapping: "what you takin' home with you tonight, your life or your fleece?" he demands. It's one of the best, most distinctive songs Trel's yet made, and it's comforting. Trel's alluded to the fact that an infusion of major-label money made some of the higher-profile guests on Nightmare possible. Hopefully, he'll manage to continue spending corporate money as wisely in the future as he does here.
