Time is an illusion; timing is everything.
Many times we find ourselves as people comparing our Chapter 5 to someone else’s Book 3. With social media, the power of image and constant relations with people our same age who seem to reach the positive epitome of their fate’s threshold easily while we are left in the same seemingly stagnant place is a special kind of pain; it seems as if we as individuals, as a majority, are in a void of progress.
Creatives, in the social media age, feel this rather unexplainable languish of self-doubt and anxiety quite unlike any other group in society. In Hip Hop, specifically the branch of Rap Culture, the pain is felt for those for hone their crafts (lyrically and productive wise), for what seems like eons, only to have someone reach global fame and fortune through the most mundane tactics. It may sound like envy, but nah dudes, it just simply sucks.
In one of my first articles for The Demo Tape, I wrote about the struggle for underground lyricists to make a break in the music industry, and the balance they must achieve in the total songwriting process, focusing on arguably the greatest rap lyricist of the New Skool Era: King Los of Baltimore (with enough quantitative and qualitative research to back it up his bestowed title of course). I prophesized King Los finally finding the synthesis with penning compositions, with a balance of all aspects, in 2017 and all of Hip Hop/the world finally seeing his prestige. Finally, after 2 and a half years of anticipation, King Los finally released the “G.O.A.T Tape” via DatPiff, SoundCloud and more free platforms and “Moor Bars” a week after, just in time for Christmas Day. In a contemporary age of commercial mixtapes and projects to maximize profit, the free mixtape is dead. Tory Lanez was one of the few mainstream rap artists to do that this year, and King Los maintained the tradition of the free mixtapes that grew him to prestige. God Bless Hip Hop.
“G.O.A.T Tape” was the most wonderful tribute and return to the classic King Los a.k.a “Swagga Boy Los” or simply “Los”, who gave iconic freestyles over contemporary beats that rivaled Lil Wayne in his prime. “Sing About Me,” the intro to a long awaited wait, started off the project covering my favorite Kendrick Lamar song of all time that had the same name. In this cover, King Los flipped the original storytelling masterpiece by talking from the outside-in to a past version of himself two years back right before his hiatus. King Los’ “Sing About Me” not only shows maturity in its lyrics, but a slew of amazing punchlines/rap gospel lyrics such as:
“Good word is worth more than a million, fuck celebrity/
Money should never motivate man more than integrity.”
Not missing a beat, or his lyrical cadence, the “New Freezer” Freestyle exudes King Los’ hubris that he flexed in his mixtape prime, except this time with a higher knowledge of self. He raps:
“I am not concerned with these rappers/I’m here for eternity, BASTARDS.”
After 10+ years in the game, the Swagga Boy turned King has finally found balance. Not to slack on his ear for the best of mainstream rap in the modern era, King Los continued the tape by adding his rendition to 21 Savage’s “Bank Account” with the most marksman sharp wordplay and aggressive energy rivaling the fury of Joyner Lucas’ and Lil Wayne’s versions.
The “Gucci Gang” Freestyle proved once again that King Los’ remixes are in actuality better than the original song with his celestially acute bars of truth and wisdom mixed in with flow and vocal inflexions that make you bop whether you are an old or a new fan. “You the King, You the King, You the King…” he remixes while getting deep on nutritional dieting in the Black community. Your fav rapper could never. He never minces from his Baltimore roasting and arrogance in showing his lyrical power, as one of the opening lines he raps on “I Shot Ya” Freestyle is:
“WE KNEW YOU WAS GONNA BE SWEET FROM YA SONAGRAM.”
If I have to break down how hard it is giving the literary imagery of dictating your enemy’s weakness before they were even brought into this planet with such a bar, maybe you should go back to your “yeah x10” adlib rappers and leave this review for an objective analysis 20+ years later when all is said and done discussing the greatest rap lyricists of all time.
The “G.O.A.T Tape” was such a dedication to King Los fans from 10 years ago until today because he regained his formula of bodying the most popular instrumentals of the time in a way that made you learn HIS lyrics as if they were the ACTUAL lyrics. If our favorite Swagga Boy was able to do that for DMV /Worldwide Smash Hit “CREW” that Brent Faiyaz changed 2017 with, then it is a testimony to King Los’ even more Excalibur sharpened skills. The “CREW” cover in particular was the one his fans across Baltimore and all over were waiting on, as shown on King Los’ social media platforms of a live studio session teasing the cover. The flow was godly with DMV brother Fat Trel delivering a much appreciated verse of good ol’ trill shit while giving praise to the power of King Los’ artistry in the verse. Although “Netflix and Chill” could have used the same hook as the original “Whatever You Need” by Meek Mill, King Los’ affinity for the good sounds of today made for a track to get us over.
“Mo Money Mo Problems” Freestyle transcended ageist perceptions that the New Skool rappers couldn’t hang with the Rakim’s, Nas’, and Biggie’s of the time. King Los, in an amazing freestyle reminiscent of the flyness of Zero Gravity I and II, spit dope bars that also gave a glimpse of how he actually might be smarter than your favorite rapper, and even THEIR favorite rapper:
“I inspect the introspective with every inch of my intellect no introjection, is this inception?
Of Martin Luther with this exception or this allusion
The disillusion so wicked I kick some shit confusing
Is god a critic like man is and flawed too?
If we in the image of god, is man a god too?
Do we fear god like man or god do?
Do you damn god, or goddamn I lost you?”
With these bars, King Los questions, from the existentialist viewpoint, of the moral question of whether or not we should fear God. However, a quick answer is not that simple. Christian lore reads that Man was made in the image of God. In that vein, why do we critique each other, fear each other, and damn each other if we are made of a unconditionally loving God that gave his godly grace to each and every one of us? Does this mean that God is flawed or that we as individuals have not reached the godly persona we need to truly transcend that God is trying to teach? Or goddamn did I lose y’all with this annotation too?
To be brutally honest, the King missed the mark with the “Dreams and Nightmares” Freestyle as Meek Mill is the only rapper currently breathing that can deliver anything close to the feeling of the original piece. However, King Los did NOT COMPLETELY miss the mark beyond his singing by giving advice to and a subliminal testimony to the power of Meek Mill as a powerful Black man, given the rappers’ relationship with each other.
An eye-raising line that could have been taken as a diss, but was just rather commentary, was when King Los said:
“I can’t stress this shit enough/Times get hard when your rollies turn into cuffs.”
The remix of “Drowning” captured Los’ developed vocal singing ability and his ability to channel his pain into the best new Black rap spirituals. “Untouchable” showed the synthesis of all of King Los’ artistry in this two year hiatus to give one last word of inspiration and certification through hard outro bars that the King is INDEED back and he is INDEED the rap G.O.A.T (Greatest of All Time).
Praise the Gods of Hip Hop and Rap…It’s the Return of the King.
Check out the “G.O.A.T Tape” streaming on Datpiff, SoundCloud and Youtube. Be on the lookout for Pt.2 of King Los’ return, also written by me.
