Roc Marciano makes the unflinching pursuit of money sound spiritual. It’s a philosophy he’s been espousing since 2010’s Marcberg, which revitalized the Long Island rapper and producer’s career after previous stints in Busta Rhymes’ Flipmode Squad and as part of the underrated, Pete Rock-endorsed crew the U.N. Marcberg gained Roc Marci friends in high places: If you believe ?uestlove’s Twitter chat, it’s an album the Roots drummer and Jay-Z have discussed at length. More importantly, it established Marci’s talent for crafting beautifully gutter music. Sampled loops of old soul songs still flecked with static and drums laid ominously low in the mix conjure up a sort of quiet storm boom-bap. Just like the music, his grainy and blasé drawl resonates with a nonchalance that makes his grisly threats even more menacing—like when he’s recommending dumping bodies in the Hudson River, or warning he’ll physically bite someone’s face off if provoked.
The albums Roc Marci has released since Marcberg have tweaked the formula: 2012’s Reloaded brought in an expanded cast of producers to cinematic effect; 2013’s Marci Beaucoup seemed more like a mixtape with a roll call of guest MCs; last year’s Rosebudd’s Revenge amped up the pimp paraphernalia. His latest, RR2: The Bitter Dose, feels like a restatement of Roc Marci’s core principles, recited in the hallowed style of reading from a religious scripture.
The funeral march piano loop of “Respected” instantly sucks you into his shadowy domain. He shuffles onto the track—outfit embellished with “fox fur on my evening coat”—and outlines his mission: “I give these heathens hope.” What follows for most of the next 13 songs is vintage Marci, with beats hooked around melancholic loops and lyrics that bandy wanton boasts about flooding the scene with “blood stones,” calling out “cuckolds,” and forming bonds with firearms: “Knew I was gully since the young ‘un with the runny nose/Even though we drove here in luxury it was a bumpy road/I had the pump, it feels good to have company though,” he relays on the stirring “Bohemian Grove.”
Going deeper, the ’80s sci-fi analog synths of “C.V.S.” prompt a glimpse into Roc Marci’s original come up: “187s, felons and ‘caine sellers/Back when [Big Daddy] Kane was selling I had the big chain with the name embedded/Made some bread and my ladies aided and abetted/The Mercedes ain’t rented, bitch, I was saving up to get it.” It’s aspirational rapping on the order of the back cover of Eric B & Rakim’s Paid In Full. Or, as Marci puts it, “This is some bucket list shit.”
Of course, after nearly 40 years of recorded hip-hop history, there’s nothing particularly fresh or innovative about rapping about the pursuit of cash per se, whether it’s gained through illicit means or as reward for an MC’s prowess. (Even Wild Style, the 1983 film that helped spread hip-hop across the world, features a prescient scene where old school party rocker Busy Bee celebrates a rap battle victory by spreading banknotes on a hotel bed to make a giant letter B.) What elevates Roc Marci from his contemporaries is that the accumulation of cash—or even what you spend it on—isn’t the climax of his hustle. The real payoff comes with learning the rules needed to translate financial success into respect. Again, there’s a tinge of East Coast rap religion to these tenets. Tellingly, the two guest MCs on the album, Action Bronson and Knowledge the Pirate, both reference Jesus Christ during their verses.
Bringing this theme home, the album’s closing track, “Power,” begins with Roc Marci ad libbing over a gospel-influenced soul song that includes a sung interpolation of John 3:16. “We play it by the book here,” he states. “Niggas think they can come in the game, change the rules, it’s always little corny niggas with no rules, no morals and ethics.” Then after rapping about bringing his family out of poverty by virtue of “printing money, I’m the dollar tree,” the ad libs return to coin the claim that Roc Marciano’s been inching towards all album: “I’m black Jesus out here, I’m black Jesus.”
