Ice Spice: 2023 Mangoprism Person of the Year

Thanks to Ice, the rap zeitgeist flows through New York City in 2023.

by

Danny Schwartz

Season Categories Published
MP802 Person of the Year

Dec 26, 2023


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The moment Ice Spice got the music industry’s attention came late in the summer of 2022, when she dropped the music video for “Munch (Feelin U).” Filmed at St. James Park in the Bronx, a few blocks from the apartment Ice grew up in, the video finds her flanked by a phalanx of baddies and rapping in an smoky, unbothered monotone rasp. The one-liners she dispenses in rapid succession—casual up-down glances and quick dismissals of lames—feel no less devastating than the brash lyrical gunplay of her New York drill forebearers Pop Smoke and Sheff G.

The moment Ice Spice became anointed as the next princess of rap came only a couple months later, when rapper and internet genius Lil Nas X posted a video of him dressed up as her in “Munch” for Halloween—complete with mint green bandeau top, nimbus of ginger curls, and safety orange talons. 

In hindsight, Lil Nas X’s video was nothing less than a prophecy of Ice Spice’s incredible and nearly frictionless ride to the heart of the pop zeitgeist in 2023, which echoed his own 2019 breakout. In 2023, Ice released her debut EP; netted a bevy of top 5 singles on the Hot 100 in collaboration with Pinkpantheress, Nicki Minaj, and Taylor Swift, including one via the Barbie movie soundtrack; performed on SNL; and released a signature drink with Dunkin and signature Chia Pet. Working with RiotUSA, her secret weapon producer (and fellow SUNY Purchase dropout), Ice cracked the algorithm by blending drill and Jersey club with R&B, bubblegum pop, Gen Z Bronx girl slang (the cutting edge of linguistics), and graduate-level internet fluency.

Looking past Lil Nas X, two other stars help us triangulate the appeal of Ice Spice. The first is Pop Smoke, the slain drill prodigy whose conquest of the NYC rap scene and emergence as an international star in less than a year runs parallel to Ice’s trajectory. Pop filled a void—he crystalized a forward-thinking sound, embraced and validated drill’s pop potential, and became the city’s greatest homemade crossover rap star since Nicki Minaj and Cardi B.

Ice Spice is picking up Pop Smoke’s torch as an avatar of and ambassador for outer-borough NYC culture, a rapper expertly weaving drill and pop sensibilities, a Hot 97-ready commercial artist who embodies the axiom “I didn’t sell out—I bought in.” Pop and Ice were born only a few months apart, and there’s little doubt that they would have collaborated by now if Pop were still alive.

(Disclaimer for the following paragraph: I say this all as a straight white man, and a proud Munchkin.) The second star who offers a lens to understand Ice Spice is 2023 Time Person of the Year Taylor Swift. In the year when Taylor Swift monoculture usurped the Marvel Cinematic Universe as our most prevalent cultural deadend, even Taylor was not the year’s alpha girl’s girl. Exempting presumed Mangoprism Person of the Century Beyonce, that honor would go to the person Taylor Swift brought out this year at her MetLife Stadium show: Ice Spice. Ice visibly feeds off female energy for her physical confidence—it’s apparent in her music videos, old photos of her with her high school volleyball team. The only time she doesn’t seem all-powerful is when she’s performing onstage alone. (Give her all of the backup dancers!) While Taylor’s music is interior, Ice’s is referential. Her sonic and visual aesthetic is that of a girl raised by Snapchat, Spongebob, Sheff G, and bodega cats. She holds a mirror to a borough and raps in conversation with the music, culture, and technology that swirls around her. Taylor builds her own world; Ice brightens the world we all share. ▩


The 10 Best Rap Albums of 2020

Drakeo the Ruler, Lil Uzi Vert, Boldy James, and more

by

Jayson Buford

Season Published
MP305

Dec 01, 2020


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10.  Chris Crack, White People Love Algorithms

Chris Crack is more than a rapper—he is an absurdist comedian who slanders cops one second and claims that black men don’t cheat the next. With White People Love Algorithms, the first (and best) of four albums he put out this year, the Chicago native leans into his comedic gifts and delivers a 29-minute stand-up special. 

Crack’s unbelievable consistency justifies the maniacal rate at which he releases music. White People Love Algorithms, an album with zero bad songs, shows that he is just getting started, and that he isn’t playing by your rules.

Listen on Bandcamp // YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music


9. Lil Baby, My Turn (Deluxe)

Down the road, when we are free from the chains of capitalism and free from a neverending story of white supremacy and an increasingly polluting planet, historians will look back in awe at “We Paid,” the collaboration between Lil Baby and his 4PF protege 42 Dugg. It begins ominously, with spare, spooky drums that seem like they’re leading you into a Lovecraft Country scene. Then, Baby and Dugg dig in. It’s simple, and sometimes simple is all you need. Along with the rest of My Turn, “We Paid” proved that even the most straightforward Baby song can crack the top 10 of the Hot 100, and that he’s as much of a superstar as any other rapper on the planet.

Before this year, I wasn’t that into Lil Baby. On “Emotionally Scarred,” a beautiful moment from My Turn, I finally realized that he was more than just another Young Thug clone. He was a singular entity—a rapper with the ability to unite old heads and Generation Z’ers. “Emotionally Scarred” is our generation’s “Song Cry” with leather jeans and auto-tune.

Listen on YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music


8. Jay Electronica, A Written Testimony

Jay Electronica’s long-awaited album arrived during the week the COVID pandemic hit the United States, making the timing of the release all the more ominous. Aided by a rejuvenated Jay-Z no longer rapping about being a landlord, A Written Testimony opens with a speech by Minister Louis Farrakhan, then segues into “Ghost of Soulja Slim,” a manifesto for black empowerment. Jay-Z sounds fiery: “My ancestors took old food, made soul food/Jim Crow’s a troll too, he stole the soul music.”

Throughout Testimony, Jay Elec and Jay-Z trade bars and feed off each other. Some listeners mistakenly compared their chemistry to Ghostface and Raekwon on Cuban Linx. In truth, it’s more like an older, smoother, and more sober version of Freddie Gibbs and Curren$y on Fetti—a pair of legends finally linking up for a long-overdue album. Two rappers in perfect sync is a sweet science indeed.

Listen on YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music


7. ShooterGang Kony, Red Paint Reverend

ShooterGang Kony has lived a life that is all too familiar for black men in this country. The Sacramento native was first locked up at age 13 and bounced in and out of jail for years before he started rapping. You can hear this in his music. It isn’t rap for the golf courses. It is mean and nasty and meant to cave in your roof during the party you are throwing when your parents aren’t home. 

Listening to Red Paint Reverend is like taking a long ride through the streets of Sacramento. “Kony Intro” keeps delivering you stunts in the form of questions: Who got the neck that cost him four bricks? You better answer that, or Kony is coming to run up on you. Across Reverend, he proves himself as an adept rapper who balances aggression with a keen ability to find a pocket. “A Sinner’s Story” is effortlessly brilliant—a great rap record without trying. By the moment the album closes out, it’s clear that Kony is one of best rappers alive because, well, he is.

Listen on YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music 


6. Roc Marciano, Mt. Marci

With Mt. Marci, Long Island vet Roc Marciano continues to refine his immaculate style, which poses a battle between his two moods. Mt. Marci is ambient but aggressive, straightforward but poetic, brutal but graceful. There’s no limit on what can happen when his drumless production collides with his sick and twisted mind, inspired by the boom bap of the New York streets. “I’m in the pussy doing the stanky leg” is one of the funniest and horniest bars of all time. That’s who Roc Marciano is—your inappropriate uncle, the realest and grimiest person at the barbecue. 

Listen on YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music 


5. Ka, Descendants of Cain

A working-class man by trade, 48-year-old Brooklyn firefighter Ka raps like an old head who has experienced a lot of trauma. His voice is hoarse, like those of Boldy James and Jadakiss, but more grim. It works well for the type of music that he makes. Ka hails from Brownsville, Brooklyn, where he “had to man up, another man down/at the least we stand fast, never stand down.” On “Patron Saint,” a haunting song with stream-of-consciousness bars over pianos and tense drums that feel like a live performance in Central Park, Ka recounts the time that he saw his dad commit a violent act. This kind of pain feels like something out of a Sopranos episode. He is matter of fact as he recounts the demons that the previous generation left to him; “our heroes sold heroin,” he raps.

This album takes me back to a time where Brooklyn wasn’t gentrified. I imagine this album on the streets generations ago, when the Son of Sam was loose, with Giuliani emboldened the NYPD to oppress black citizens, and when you couldn’t walk the streets with any safety. Ka’s music rings with his truth—his solitude, his pain, and his strife. And it’s glorious.

Listen on YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music 


4. Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist, Alfredo

Freddie Gibbs is competing with himself at this point. A couple weeks ago, he received a long-overdue Grammy nomination for this album. The Grammys tend to award rappers for their work at the end of their peaks, and never when they make their best work. That’s what happens when you are a corporate entity that exists to celebrate the best music that sells, not the best music of humanity.

That’s the reason why I am having trouble reviewing Alfredo, which is clearly a very good album. Gibbs sounds like a boxer on the somber yet militant “Scottie Beam.” White supremacy has beaten, ravaged, and dehumanized us, but he’s still up and ready to go when the bell rings round 15. When he says that he has more guns than the Gary police, it isn’t only a boast—it’s a call for even the meekest among us to rise against racist tyranny. Gibbs is so goddamn good at what he does that it feels regular now. “Frank Lucas” is still one of the best songs of the year; gangsta rap is limitless and beautiful in the form of a Gary, Indiana transplant that is the son of Richard Pryor and Brad Jordan. 

Listen on YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music


3. Drakeo the Ruler, Thank You For Using GTL

Drakeo the Ruler is now a free man after spending three years in LA Men’s County Central Jail as a political prisoner. Though he was in bondage because of sadistic detectives and corrupt prosecutors, he was hardly absent from the rap game. In February, he released Free Drakeo; four months later, in June, he dropped Thank You For Using GTL, the greatest rap album ever recorded from jail. 

Drakeo’s status as an example of the harrowing racism and oppression in the criminal justice system has somewhat obscured one of the biggest reasons his case meant a lot to all of us—he is an incredible rapper. He commands attention even while spitting over the jail phone. He can be playful, but there isn’t a single track on GTL that doesn’t feel high-stakes. These aren’t songs so much as street sermons. On “Quit Rappin,” when he says, “I got problems/ I wouldn’t last one minute up in college,” it’s a threat and a boast. Drakeo codes his message in slang, but once you decipher it, you won’t be able to listen to anybody else. The man knows how to develop his themes. On “Bad Timing,” he opens up the second verse, “I would hit ’em with the K, but then that’s violent/ I would say I let ’em live, but then that’s lyin’/ I didn’t plan to go to jail, it was bad timing.” It’s a beautiful thing that Drakeo has been released from the inhumanity of prison. Thank You For Using GTL won’t be his last great album. Let his freedom ring. 

Listen on YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music


2. Lil Uzi Vert, Eternal Atake

This is the part where I tell you about one of my favorite songs of the year. “Silly Watch” feels like the song that you hear in your head when you mix alcohol and weed. (Don’t do drugs, kids.) If you made a music video for this song, the camera would be doing cartwheels. It’s a three-minute riot from the man who bridges the gap between Andre 3000 and Chief Keef and brings in a bit of Lil Wayne’s extra-terrestrial personality. 

Uzi may not be the most technically sound rapper, but he sounds superhuman on “Silly Watch” and all over Eternal Atake. He successfully locates the pocket on every beat on the album, from “You Better Move,” which samples a Pac-Man arcade game you’d found at a local Philly pizza joint, to the Keef-produced “Chrome Heart Tags,” which sounds like a Dedication outtake. Across Eternal Atake, Uzi has the fun of an incorrigible teenager, and it is infectious. Even though he’s definitely an artist whose heart belongs to the younger generation of music fans, there is something for everyone on this record. This album celebrates rap music in all of its forms. For most of Uzi’s career, old heads have seen him as a harbinger of rap’s demise. This viewpoint was always incorrect and crass. The truth is, Uzi is a shining example why rap is always going to be the premiere genre in American culture.

Listen on YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music


1. Boldy James (with The Alchemist), The Price of Tea in China

Boldy James is having one of the most memorable years of any rapper in recent memory. You always hear mentions of “2008 Lil Wayne,” and all praises due, but I now propose: 2020 Boldy James.

In actuality, Boldy has been great for a while now. My 1st Chemistry Set, his 2013 debut album, is an unheralded classic. Rap is funny that way. Sometimes it takes a particular time and particular year for an artist to get the flowers that they have always deserved. Released back in February, The Price of Tea in China is your favorite rapper’s favorite album of 2020. Every song is a meal in itself. Boldy’s voice sounds like a somber military veteran who subsists on a steady diet of Johnnie Walker. His raps are criminal in nature; there is no limit to the number of coke puns he can cram into a verse. But it’s a nuanced record—he raps not only about crime, but how it has affected him over the years. The guest features are excellent, too. Freddie Gibbs shows up Boldy on “S.N.O.R.T.” rapping about his uncle’s discerning nose for quality blow. Griselda sharp-shooter Benny the Butcher lends a hand on “Scrape The Bowl” with his trademark grit-and-grind raps. 

Alchemist works with Boldy better than anyone this side of Prodigy. The minimalist, grainy beats of The Price of Tea allow Boldy’s controlled, monotone voice to shine through. Boldy conveys a wide range of emotions with ease; he can brag, lament, and reflect, all without removing his finger on his trigger. “Phone Bill” talks about the tough times he had in the hood growing up. Aunty had throat cancer and he can’t afford to pay his phone bill. That’s why black kids enter life on the streets. You have to eat some way.

There’s a sense among old heads that no one wants to listen to rappers rap anymore. Boldy proves this isn’t true; everyone can get down with this. There’s a difference between great, original rapping and rapping that simply tries to impress the listener. Boldy is the former—a cold man from Detroit energized on The Price of Tea by Alchemist’s gritty brilliance. The result is a borderline masterpiece that will one day be upheld as the first great rap album of the decade. And I didn’t even write about Manger on McNichols. ▩

Listen on YouTube // Spotify // Apple Music


Nate Dogg: Plight of the Pimp

by

Frankie Pavia

Season Categories Published
MP00 Music

Sep 09, 2012


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When Danny asked me to write about Nate Dogg, the gears in my brain immediately started spinning.  It’ll be easy, I thought, to write a tribute to my most beloved musician.  If only.

I thought about reactions different people had when I told them my favorite artist was Nate Dogg. West Coast folks usually at least knew who he was, but the average respondent couldn’t name one of his songs beyond “Regulate.” East Coasters asked, “You mean Snoop Dogg?” forcing me to perform incredible feats of self-restraint in not pimp-slapping them on the spot for being ignorant.

Nate Dogg is perhaps most widely recognized for being on the forefront of the G-Funk movement.  Actually, the above paragraph shows I know jack shit about the broad perception of Nate Dogg.  In any case, helping create G-Funk is how Nate Dogg really came up in the game.

The public’s first exposure to Nate was ever so appropriately via “Deeez Nuuuts” off Dr. Dre’s The Chronic in 1992.  After Dre, Snoop, and Daz Dillinger (then known as “Dat Nigga Daz”) finish rapping, Nate comes in on the outro, sings “Aaaaaaaye can’t be faaaaded, I’m a nigga from the mothafuckin… streets” four times, then shows off his incredible vocal range for eight bars, all the while repping Dre and Death Row to the fullest.  The very next song on the album features Nate on the hook, showing off a vibrato that can only be described as ghetto-opera in style.  All of the sudden, Nate Dogg was prominent in the public eye.

Soon after, in perhaps his most famous appearance, Nate costarred with Warren G in the hit “Regulate.” Costarred might be the wrong word.  Nate stole the show. Let’s examine the story arc of the song.  Warren G is whippin’ through Long Beach trying to find some female companionship for the evening.  He soon gets distracted by a dice game and decides he wants to join.  He “jumps out the ride and says what’s up” before the people in the game pull guns on him, taking his rings, Rolex, and dignity.  Warren G is, essentially, Ashy Larry from Chappelle’s Show.

Luckily for Warren G, Nate Dogg is on the scene.  He’s looking for Warren, fending off lady-folk who try to approach him, because he keeps his eyes on the prize.  Unlike Warren G.  Nate realizes he’d “best pull out his strap and lay them bustas down,” scattering Warren’s attackers, saving his bitch ass, and in the process, Regulatin’.

The rest of the story is rather simple.  Nate retraces his steps to the girls he previously ignored, picks them up, and provides a couple to Warren G before they hit the next stop, the Eastside Motel.  After a chorus break, Nate proclaims his and G-funk’s place on top of the rap game.

G-Funk was a subgenre that fit Nate perfectly, and he knew that.  During its brief (roughly 1992-1995) era of dominating West Coast hip-hop, Nate experienced what was essentially his only period of superstardom.  Mainstream eventually left G-Funk behind, Nate never departed from it.

G-Funk, “Gangsta Funk,” allowed Nate Dogg to combine the formative elements and locales of his upbringing.  His voice was developed in the gospel choirs of Mississippi, while his personality and worldview were shaped by running the streets of Long Beach with his cousin Snoop Dogg during his teenage years.  G-Funk allowed the synthesis of his distinctive musical sound and gangsta lifestyle.

His first album, G-Funk Classics, Vol. 1 & 2, was released in 1998, long after G-Funk had fallen from its perch atop hip-hop.  His second album, 2001’s Music and Me, saw slightly better sales, but did not re-vault Nate into the upper echelon of rap.

Hip-hop is distinctly regional – the first label every artist receives is their coast, city, or hometown.  Rappers then seek to rep that label, spreading the predetermined message of their locale.  At first glance, Nate Dogg’s message seems to be a simple one: “Disregard females, acquire currency” – that of a pimp.  The album cover of Music and Me agrees with this interpretation.

Woven into the majority of lyrics on his own songs are tales of him tooting it and booting it when YG was still a toddler.  But on occasion, Nate reveals more to himself that just that, an unexpected depth of character explaining his ability to make a commitment to a single woman.  On “Scared of Love,” he croons, “When they asked me why I don’t like love / Or why I don’t have a lady / Maybe it’s because I know / As soon as I tell her how I feel about her / As soon as I act like I love her, she’s gone”

While the expression of interest by the female is often the reason Nate ceases contact with that individual, he has undergone the same experience himself.  We see a similar instance on “Never Leave Me Alone,” Nate telling us, “They tell me that temptation / Ooh, is very hard to resist / You tell me that you want me / I tried to hide my feelings, D-O-G’s ain’t supposed to feel like this”

The true Nate Dogg is hard to identify.  Is he a real P-I-M-P, as he proclaims on the aptly named song?  Is he scared that he will never find that special someone?  The idea begins to emerge that Nate doesn’t even truly know who he is, perhaps unable to reconcile the pull of Mississippi religion with Long Beach pimpin’.  With time, his lyrics eliminate this tension.  He drifts away from sensitivity and into misogyny.  Abandoning the intricacies and difficulties of relationships and attachment, Nate instead settles in to the role of using women.  He distances himself from any potential emotional distress by establishing a disconnect between his body and mind, essentially leaving his mind behind.  Why worry about love when you can take on the persona of a pimp?

Nate Dogg was unable to find commercial success in his attempts to preach the lifestyle of Long Beach and the gospel sound of Mississippi.  In order to reach a broader audience, Nate adopted an alternative strategy – singing the hooks on other rappers’ singles, branding himself as a key ingredient in making a top song.  Again, with only eight to sixteen bars to establish his message, nothing as emotionally complex as his early work can be eluted from his verses.

Unfortunately, Nate was taken from this world too soon.  From late 2008 to his death in 2011, he was confined to bed after a series of strokes.  He was essentially unable to speak during this time, his incredible voice never to return.  It wasn’t until about 2006 that I truly became a Nate Dogg fanatic, along with a friend of mine.  Upon reading about how his mother was reading fan letters aloud to Nate while he attempted recovery, we vowed to write him.  We never did.

How can I, how can any middle-class white kid relate to hip-hop the way we do? Why did Nate Dogg’s music touch me in such a profound way?  Why does it continue to do so?  Every teenager and young adult is scrapping through life, dealing with pain, pleasure, acceptance, and rejection, trying to find out who they really are.  We see Nate Dogg take on this same experience, and, rather than fighting it, taking the flight response we all so desperately want to fall back upon.  Why cope with the hardships of searching for love and companionship when Nate Dogg can forget all about it, sing, engage in only physical relationships, pimp, and hey-ey-ey-ey-ey, smoke weed every day?

Does Nate Dogg take the easy way out by doing this? I don’t think so.  He simply takes the Epicurean view of the world, seeing pleasure as the absence of pain.  Did he follow this philosophy in life? Not so much.  It appears that he was a pretty jealous guy.  Adopting his musical persona, Nate Dogg realized that he could distance himself from everything that could potentially harm his soul, so he did.  His greater purpose in life was to bring happiness to those who listened to his music, realizing that choruses on others’ hits were the perfect medium to accomplish that.  He escaped from his problems by singing.  Along the way, he happened to unearth one of the great philosophical truths of the past two decades: Pimpin’ can, in fact, be easy.