Playboy Tre has been toiling in Atlanta's rap underground for nearly 10 years, and unless you are following one of the handful of regional-rap blogs that are championing him, you've probably never heard his name before. He spent some time running with the Youngbloodz and recorded an album with one-time Lil Jon signee Bohagon that was never released, but these days he mostly pays the bills selling hooks to more-successful rappers (T.I.'s "Slide Show", for example) alongside his also-way-more-famous compatriot Bobby Ray (aka B.o.B.). His long list of setbacks seems to have both humbled and focused him, however, and over the past year, he has released two increasingly ambitious and introspective full-length mixtapes full of all-original beats that grapple honestly and engagingly with his growing despair and frustration. Last year's Goodbye America was a bitter farewell to a country that had done nothing for him, while Liquor Store Mascot is an even more personal affair, detailing his struggles with alcohol. His frivolous rap name is a remnant of his more carefree youth, and it feels like a misnomer now; he can be hilarious, but Playboy Tre is emphatically not playing. On "Before I Go", he lays it all on the table: "I'm the man behind the raps, but I'm way older than your average/ Fuck, I'm in my thirties, got a nephew named Josh, another nephew named Dave who I'd kill for any day/ And I don't have kids even though I'm past due/ Said I'd never do abortion, but I did that shit, too."
This kind of disarming candor is what helps make Liquor Store Mascot a memorable tour of the view from Tre's barstool. "I ain't scared to tell the world I'm a drunk, man, cuz this is me," he raps on the title track, the perfectly phrased and delivered chorus of which goes, "You know I do it for the have-nots/ And keep an ice-cold beer like I'm the liquor store mascot." His fondness for booze, and the self-deprecating way he raps it, have led to some Devin the Dude comparisons, which is a fair starting point, but the different between Devin and Playboy is also the difference between a stoner and a drunk; even when he gets dark, Devin never seems more than a beat or two away from dissolving into giggles, where as even when Tre's joking, the tension and buried hurt is audible in his voice. Part of this comes from the Georgia salt of his accent, but it's also in the flatly nasal, sardonic way he wields it: "Lord bless the people at the bottom of the bottle, word to Gil Scott," he raps on "Living in the Bottle", spitting out each syllable through gritted teeth over an interpolation of Heron's "The Bottle". Like all drunks, his recollections are equally funny and sad: "Pop hit that liquor, his attitude would switch up/ Started kicking niggas out, and tell 'em, 'take that ugly bitch with ya'", he remembers later on "Bottle".
Luckily, Tre doesn't devote the whole mixtape rapping about drinking. On "Sideways", he brings the same narrative clarity and immediacy to recounting dead-end meetings with record executives and staying up till 4 a.m. trying to write songs in a bare apartment. On "Oh My Lord Freestyle", he kicks hilariously nasty sex raps and swagger over uptempo gospel clapping. And on the powerfully evocative "Bleachers", he raps with breathless reverence over an echoing "boom-boom clap" beat and a single ghostly keyboard about staying late at school, "in an empty gym, beatin' on bleachers, trying to get my lyrics right." The song captures the simple joy of rhyming so beautifully-- "I got a song that the block 'bout to hear tonight!" he crows at one point-- that it should warm the heart of even the most cantankerous hip-hop nerd.
As mentioned, the mixtape is composed of all original beats, and truly, if Tre can put together a record this appealing and sonically varied for free with no record deal, than no one with even a paltry label budget behind them has the slightest excuse anymore. "Liquor Store Mascot", produced by Phantom, piles Mannie Fresh trumpet fanfares over Shawty Redd-style pizzicato strings; "If This World Was Mine" is a warm chipmunk-soul loop worthy of pre-College Dropout Kanye; and "Livin In the Bottle"'s Gil Scott-Heron sample is lush and seamless enough to recall "Stay Fly". "Everybody's Lookin for Something" even manages to find a fresh angle on the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams". Sure, there is a slightly cheesy song with Bobby Ray about how we are all like robots, really, when you think about it, and yeah, "Remember Me" features a hook sung by who I'm pretty sure is the lead singer of Evanescence, but for the most part, Playboy Tre has managed, with no label support, pu [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| blicist, or backing of any kind, to release one of the most resonant rap albums, independent or not, of the year so far. Raise a glass to the man.
