West coast rap has evolved a lot in the last thirty years, but in some ways, it hasn’t changed at all. Take for instance the attitude exuded by its most exciting players – whether we’re talking 1991 or 2020, there’s a swagger that puts Los Angeles-based rappers like OG Cuicide in a league of their own, and that’s exactly what we’re reminded of in the new single “Keep it G,” currently out and available everywhere quality hip-hop is sold and streamed. “Keep it G” features OG Cuicide at ease with an aesthetical concept that has really become his own in the past nine years, and with a little help from AD, he delivers what could be the most well-rounded offering to bear his moniker to date.
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First and foremost, there’s a lot of self-control in the performance we get out of both rappers in this track, to such an extent that I would say AD and OG Cuicide make up a picture of restraint from a creative standpoint. They’re given numerous opportunities to go after excess, but every chance results in the same scenario – one player working away from the epicenter of the instrumental release whilst the foundational pillars of the groove press forward. You don’t need an explosive beat or over the top synthetic filler in the harmony when you’ve got organic talent, and that’s precisely what’s going on in “Keep it G” – which is something I haven’t been able to note about a lot of other indie hip-hop out of the east coast underground lately.
There isn’t much fat on the bass part in this track, but personally I don’t really think OG Cuicide needed to include it to get a thoroughly physical feel to the bottom-end. He’s using the EQ to accentuate the instrumental faceting within the mix rather than dumping a lot of additional tonality on us (most of which we simply wouldn’t have known what to do with). It’s a rather inventive way to get us feeling a clubby pulse without inviting a lot of inauthenticity into the sound – a problem that many of his peers have been struggling to get past, particularly in the alternative hip-hop community as it presently stands in 2020.
I wasn’t aware of the complete discography of OG Cuicide or much of anything AD had recorded prior to coming across “Keep it G” and its parent album, the full-power OGs Are Forever, but now that I’ve been familiarized with their sound and what they can get done when there aren’t any A&R barriers to come between their desires and the audience, I won’t be missing out on any future output. OG Cuicide has a lot going for him right now, and although his last album was released in 2019, the hype it attracted is really starting to reach a fever pitch now, in 2020. I’d recommend getting back into the studio a lot sooner than later if I were advising his career, if only to capitalize on the momentum singles like this one have created for the brand in general.
Loretta Kim