By shelz
One time for the street folks and two times for the masses is the formula of success for today’s rappers. We try to act like the golden age required splashes of gutter water on anything popping, but if memory serves, radio spins have been the key to Hip-Hop supremacy for decades. Few have toggled between the two better than Bad Boy artists and that recipe can be heard full force in Machine Gun Kelly’s first proper release, Half Naked and Almost Famous.
The mixtapes put MGK on the radar. Wrestlemania and The NFL Network have adopted his tunes and proven him commercially viable, but now it’s time to show and prove. With Diddy choreographing the convoluted waltz between rap rowdiness and top pop corniness and MGK’s own engaging bullet spray delivery, all the pieces are in place to make a competent EP worthy of teen allowance coins from here to Timbuktu. Did he make it happen? Yes. The only problem is short of “Wild Boy,” that’s all this EP is: competent. MGK said he’s the renegade of this rap shit, but for the most part he plays it very safe.
Machine Gun is preparing to deliver Lace Up, his first LP, so it goes without saying that you won’t find his best material on the warm up, but Half Naked and Almost Famous leans heavily into the 1st class radio realm and leaves the underground in coach.
Cassie joins the party early with her Rihanna-esque hook on the lead song “Warning Shot.” It would be easy to roll your eyes at Sean’s get-famous-or-die-trying dedication to Cassie’s career, but she does a fine job playing the sexy yin to MGK’s growling yang. Creepy synth, dark organs and overbearing snare rolls make this a cemetery at midnight special. Kelly explains he’s nothing to fuck with. You get one break, but watch your ass; the next shot won’t be in the air.
Then there’s “Wild Boy,” a song that has captivated every male child from 10 to 21 and has them doing a truck load of dumb shit in the name of being feral. I almost ran over someone’s teenaged knuckle head as he stood in the middle of an intersection screaming these lyrics and stomping his feet. Wild boy almost equaled flat boy. It would have been a tragedy; still it speaks to the power of this song on the impressionable. You’ve heard it. Let’s move on.
“See My Tears” finds MGK joining Keith Sweat outside in the rain to cover up all that crying he does at night. A child of low expectations and bad experience, MGK serves up inspiration on a weed cloud over some throw away J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League production. He vows complete loyalty to his crew and suggests the sky’s the limit for his career. He might want to talk to Black Rob or G Depp about that. The title cut is a happier version of “See My Tears.” A plethora of pop culture references sprinkle the pop foundation, proving even when he was extra poor he still had a radio and a TV. Rage Against The Machine, Blink 182 and the short lived Teen show California Dreams were among his favorites obviously.
The closer, “Est 4 Life” is a shout to Cleveland and the folks who held him down before the bright lights. The track features some stair-step synth and more menacing electronic accoutrements, including gunshots. He’s down with these folks forever and they plan to be a major problem on the national scene. This would bump in a club…in Cleveland.
Half Naked and Almost Famous, while certainly possessed of one of the best titles of the year, provides little new. Its formulaic base is elevated by MGK’s charisma and tongue-twisting flow more so than the words that drive it. For the casual Hip-Hop fan, the EP will be an enjoyable, head-nodding experience, but the pop filtered fodder will fall flat for aficionados of the emcee craft. I also wish he would stop calling himself Kelz. Every song I’m expecting some trapped in the closet ish but it never happened. Anyway, there’s very little gutter water here folks, but ya’ll probably knew that already. Wild aside, he’s still a Bad Boy.
3.25 out of 5
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