One thing about the New Orleans rapper Curren$y: He's adaptable. In a decade-long career, he's played a staggering number of roles: Serving as foot soldier in Master P's fading No Limit empire, standing in Lil Wayne's shadow during that man's historic mid-00s run, striking out on his own and building himself to cult-favorite status on a series of weed-and-sneaker-addled solo mixtapes, inhabiting Ski Beatz' sumptuous psychedelic-soul production on last year's two great Pilot Talk albums. And now that he's established himself as one of the stars of an ascendant Internet-friendly stoner-rap scene, he's giving himself a new challenge, pairing up with the producer Alchemist for the online giveaway Covert Coup.
Alchemist has had a tumultuous career of his own. He's a Beverly Hills native who came to prominence crafting Tunnel anthems for New York roughnecks like Mobb Deep and Jadakiss. These days, he specializes in a broken, warped form of rap production-- classic New York boom-bap refracted through prisms, the loose-and-shaggy Stones Throw cratedigger style turned ominous and bloodthirsty. His tracks for Covert Coup aren't far removed from the stuff he did on Gutter Water, an overlooked 2010 album that found him teaming with the West Coast underground stalwart Oh No, the two of them bouncing their queasiest, most unsettled head-nodders off of each other. On Covert Coup, his decayed guitar loops and creeping drum breaks remind me of the shattered post-apocalyptic New York that Snake Plissken had to escape. It's a different kind of weed-rap, one Curren$y hasn't really tried to do. And yet he slip-slides through it with the charming, effortless ease that's become his trademark. Nothing fazes this guy.
Curren$y's been calling Covert Coup an EP, but it's 10 tracks in 28 minutes, longer than plenty of punk and indie full-lengths I own. The mixtape follows what I guess you'd call the Madvillainy model-- 90-second stretches of dense lyricism, [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| usually without a chorus-- before the rapper fades out and the woozy, evocative track takes over. Curren$y's verses aren't punchline marathons; they're stoned reveries, and it can be riveting to hear him depict certain situations with loose, unhurried narrative precision: "Let the little homey kick it in the auto shop with us/ Long as he can make store runs and keep his mouth shut/ Same way I came up."
As a rapper, Curren$y's greatest asset is his delivery, the way his pinched, nasal Louisiana drawl slithers its way through the track. But he's also great at coming up with sharp, unexpected ways to address standard rap topics. On his weed-smoking capacity: "The toxic air that I'm breathing would leave a average man weakened." On his own charisma: "If you looking for that nigga, I is him/ All eyes in this direction/ A burden and a blessing." On his home life: "White carpets in my Scarface house/ No undergarments on my Scarface spouse." On how high he is right this second: "Playa all Himalaya-ish." His lyrics are full of slick little tricks like these, tiny turns of phrase that sneak up on you after multiple listens but which dazzle in their economy when you parse them out.
A few well-selected guests turn up on Covert Coup, and all of them make strong foils for Curren$y's conversational calm. Freddie Gibbs' focused on-fire double-time on "Scottie Pippen" stands in stark contrast to Curren$y's style, and the two extremes work well together. Alc's just-out-of-prison blood brother Prodigy plays a tough, raspy uncle figure, showing a sense of hardhead style that emerges too rarely on P's own recent online offering, The Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson EP. Curren$y's puff-buddy Smoke DZA breezes right through "Life Instructions". And fellow New Orleans vet Fiend has a great moment on "Blood Sweat and Gears", letting off a couple of lines in a bluesy moan-sing before snapping into an excellent grown-man verse. These guest spots do what they're supposed to do. They don't overwhelm Curren$y or clash with his style; they just bring some new dimensions out of his songs. They're there for chemistry reasons, not name value, and they work great.
Curren$y let Covert Coup out into the world on 4/20, a fun but unnecessary attention-grabbing stunt. There's plenty of zoned-out atmosphere on the tape, but it's a strong, focused, unified piece of work, not just a lava-lamp soundtrack. It stands on its own.
