After dropping 10 records in half as many years, Crimeapple has managed to stay on his grind in hip-hop’s underground without making it seem like a struggle. And while the central premise of his latest LP YDFWC? (You Don’t Fuck With Crime?) suggests an incredulousness at the idea that one might sleep on him—and spends much of its runtime stating his case—he seems genuinely unbothered, as quick to crack a joke at his own expense as he is to flex his rhyming prowess.
Crimeapple’s prolific run kicked off in earnest with a much-buzzed-about “freestyle” on Statik Selektah’s Shade 45 show, a nearly 10-minute lyrical barrage that dissolved any doubts in the room. His sartorial style—loose-fitting hoodies, bald head, and a loud, red beard—is quick to draw skepticism. But those doubts are quickly put to rest the moment he opens his mouth, his smooth delivery and nimble flow honed at countless rap battles, spitting verses peppered with clever one-liners designed to stop you in your tracks.
Born to Colombian parents and raised in northern New Jersey, Crimeapple finds himself, like many Latinos, between worlds. He made a bilingual rap record in Medellín with DJ Muggs (Medallo) but is still seen as an outsider in the country of his birth. Crime knows he’s a gringo (“I’m not Latino enough for Telemundo,” he raps on “Carrington Event”) but still spits in Spanglish. He remains independent—with a distribution deal through the Orchard—and generally seems unconcerned with breaking into the overground, let alone the mainstream. The man just raps really well, and somehow, that’s enough.
That confidence informs a lighthearted air that keeps YDFWC? record from becoming too self-serious. He sticks with some of his go-to producers (Buck Dudley, Brown13), but he mostly avoids the dark and sinister mood of his screed against greed that was Viridi Panem in favor of a smoothed-out vintage R&B vibe. This is Crime at his goofiest and most affable, somehow managing to puff out his chest (“I let you breathe the same air as me/That’s philanthropy”) even when he’s the butt of his own joke (“Chicks on my vas deferens/But I’m no Zac Efron”).
The prime example of Crime’s self-deprecating braggadocio is “Gambler’s Fallacy,” a light romp chock full of sex flexes that opens with a recitation of a mean tweet: “The least believable narrative in underground hip-hop is that Crimeapple is pulling chicks like that.” Amid boasts about dating a Victoria’s Secret model with an eating disorder and a bisexual woman that “rock flannels” and “got the same haircut as Rachel Maddow,” he admits that he wants a woman who will “run her fingers through my back hair” and still loves him even though he wears sweats covered in cat hair.
YDFWC? is not the best Crimeapple record; that honor likely goes to his paean to the Colombian spirit Aguardiente. But it does find the rapper at his most self-assured, a bilingual wordsmith with the gift of gab that’s not above cracking a joke at his own expense. Five years into the game, Crime remains unsigned and unbothered.
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