Showing posts with label $LR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label $LR. Show all posts

3/13/24

$cottLaRock - If Love Could Kill

Symbol cheating like an unscrupulous Scrabble player, $cottLaRock remains the first name in Long Island Rap. Say what you will about board game night. 

If Love Could Kill, it would. (Would.) Imagine the body count. It would rap under the name Mass Grave. Peace to YoungBeenDead. It would say something dramatic before doing the deed. "If I can't have you, no one will!" And then, my friend, you die. It would assassinate, denoting the stature of its victim. It would slam the door behind it. 

If only...

3/29/20

$LR - Lysergic Energy

While we're using analogies to describe sounds, $LR is to NYC-based "New New York" flag bearers like Mike and Medhane as De La Soul was to then-new-school forebearers Ultra Magnetic MCs and Boogie Down Productions. Or, if you see Southern-influenced New Yorkers as the crème de la crème, the same applies; Lysergic Energy is to Always Strive and Prosper as Buhloone Mindstate was to Critical Beatdown.

It's a similar mileu but driven further, like that hazy day-trip along the 495.

That said, $cott LaRock is his own man with his own vision, and it's substantial regardless of the substances involved. As $LR writes in Lysergic Energy's disclaimer, "DONT DO DRUGS BUT IF YOU DO TAKE IT DONT LET IT TAKE YOU." The PSA recalls $LR's handle on his cadence, which doesn't so much conform to the beats as it does use them, thereby taking them places that less capable rappers couldn't without ODing.



Lysergic Energy is $LR's first release of 2020 but his fourth in the past 12 months, follwing The Don LaRock EP, Out w the Old & In w the New and No Sleep Vol. 1. It's a long trip so catch up.