What I'm Listening To in November 2020
This November, Ariana Grande showed the power of a good duet, Lil Uzi Vert worried us just a little bit, and Phoebe Bridgers reignited my seventh-grade orchestra phase.
Every month, I keep an ongoing playlist of songs that I want to keep in my listening rotation. These could be singles, loosies, album standouts, or just songs I can’t get out of my head, but they often have some significance to my own life or the state of the world. This month showed us that teamwork makes the dreamwork, except when it doesn’t, and that lyricism isn’t dead—forty-year-old rappers, rejoice! If you want to get monthly updates on music and other (non-scheduled) things that I’m writing, subscribe to my newsletter.
Here’s what I’m listening to:
Tierra Whack
Dora
As I sit back and sip a Negroni, trying to, for a little bit, block out the semi-coup and pandemic fumble that we’re in the midst of, I take solace in one thought: Tierra Whack is back. Followed later this month by “feel good” and “Peppers and Onions,” “Dora” is just as childish, off-kilter, and catchy as her breakout album (?), Whack World. It’s a great reintroduction to her style, starting off with cutesy backing vocals and Tierra chiming in: “I like nice things/ Give me nice things” like she’s performing a tune on Sesame Street. Then the beat kicks in, muffling the background acapella to the point that it’s unclear whether it’s the original sample or a flute.
Like the form, the content of the song is also characteristically Tierra Whack. She winkingly plays on the generic trappings whatever style she’s using, in this case, the empowered materialism of Flo Milli or City Girls-esque trap: “Call me a gold digger, yes, of course/ In Dior/ I think I might just buy me a horse.” Tierra’s singles tread a little less on the line of parody than Whack World did, but they’re still able to draw the listener into whatever cartoonish world she lives in, especially when the visuals are so off the wall. Much more preferable than whatever the hell is going on now.
Ariana Grande
safety net (feat. Ty Dolla $ign)
Among the slight innovations of Ariana Grande’s newest album—more strings, more sex, and possible use of a Bumpit™—is the return of the duet. Accompanied by the yearning, saccharine “off the table” with the Weeknd and the pop-tailored “motive” with Doja Cat (more of a feature than a duet, to be fair), “safety net” shows just how well the familiar Ty Dolla $ign feature can be wielded.
When he first enters the song in the second verse, Ty finds home in the instrumental, making it hard to believe that he and Ariana haven’t worked together before. Their affinity for trap-RnB fusion and tendency for runs and flashy vocal performance make the two a no-brainer pairing. Despite the dueling vocals, one singer showing off only to be followed by another vocal flex, “safety net” doesn’t feel like a competition. Instead, it’s two skilled artists who know how to craft a very solid RnB song.
Oneohtrix Point Never
No Nightmares
Speaking of tailor-fit duos, the newest collabo from Oneohtrix Point Never and the Weeknd hits sufficiently well. Where their last joint venture, “Scared to Live” from the Weeknd’s After Hours, seemed to use Oneohtrix’s production to augment the Weeknd’s distinctive style, the opposite is true here. The electronic artist seems to mix Abel Tesfaye’s vocals into his little throwback soundscape, showcasing one of the several wheelhouses that Oneohtrix can live in. There’s not much to the lyrics, but the power-ballad arrangement and the vocal mixing of Oneohtrix, the Weeknd, and maybe Caroline Polachek(?) is heavenly. Personally, I would love to see more post-Uncut Gems collabs—maybe Adam Sandler and LaKeith Stanfield can make a bad mixtape together?
2 Chainz
Free Lighter (feat. Lil Uzi Vert & Chief Keef)
Sosa rarely blesses us with a beat, but when he does, it’s always at least a little special. This cut off of 2 Chainz’s So Help Me God sounds about as evil as you’d expect from Chief Keef production, and it’s fun to hear the three artists ride over the looped strings. Just a nice song where three rappers do their thing! Sometimes that’s more than enough.
Mavi
SMH
One of the beautiful things about D.C. rapper Mavi is the way that he can use every millisecond of a beat. The standup bass-heavy instrumental almost seems like it might be meant for A Tribe Called Quest, but instead of Q-Tip’s breathy staccato, Mavi’s nonstop flow occupies the entire song. There’s no filler, either; Mavi packs the lyrics with opaque prescriptions for the road ahead:
Outrage went frozen, though his case not cold we can’t keep over churning
Throat is burning bile is rising
More concerned than proselytizing
Closed the circle knowing the incurrent curse of modernizing
Mavi, along with contemporaries like Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE, is part of a new school that values intelligent lyricism without being, like, Royce da 5’9”.
Pink Siifu & Fly Anakin
Clean (feat. Liv.e)
Here are two other neo-lyrical rappers, Pink Siifu and Fly Anakin, posing in front of covers of albums that, one can assume, have influenced them. The record-digging concept of their collaborative album, FlySiifu, shows some of these influences. “Clean,” like most of the cuts off of the album, keeps its jazz and Southern roots on its sleeve. Accompanied by the talented Liv.e (whose feature is understated but valuable on the hook), the duo floats on the murky, jazzy, piano-looping beat. Yet again, the song is greater than the sum of its parts—while each artist is good in their own right, none particularly shines in this performance, but put together, Liv.e, Pink Siifu, and Fly Anakin make for a compelling trio.
Lil Uzi Vert
Lullaby
Teamwork does make the dream work, but sometimes the exception makes the rule. The only solo song off of Future and Lil Uzi Vert’s joint venture, Pluto x Baby Pluto, happens to be one of the best cuts off of the whole tape (contrary to popular opinion if you’re looking at internet comments). In fact, Uzi raps circles around Future for the whole thing, in most cases leaving him in the dust to list off sleepy bars.
It’s unclear whether Uzi is rapping or monologuing on “Lullaby.” At points, he’s on-beat, at times off-beat. At times he’s keeping to what he raps about on much of Pluto x Baby Pluto:
See, I'm not worried about them n—s, 'cause I got boys that's gon' crash out
See, drive up on your block, do the drive-by, and then smash out (Skrrt)
Whip it up in the kitchen, no potatoes, got mash out
But at times, especially on the chorus, he’s not only introspective but also aware of his roamings on the song:
I got off-topic, I start
Talkin' about the drugs and all of the profit and
Talkin' about the shit I learned, the streets, they gave me knowledge
See, I saw a n—a get killed back when I was a toddler, yeah
So how I'm 'posed to love, girl? Now how I'm 'posed to fear?
I feel like I haven’t seen anyone talking about how Lil Uzi Vert seems to say goodbye so much. It’s easy to dismiss him as a funny character, a rapper who adopts the emo aesthetic for his sadboy melodic tracks, but he seems to grapple with real stuff here, as he does on each of his albums. “Now how I’m ‘posed to love, girl? Now how I’m ‘posed to fear?” “Lullaby” is a clear-eyed, personal, concise writeup of trauma, of fame, and of the unsteady transition from one to the other and was only possible because Uzi performed it alone.
Phoebe Bridgers & Rob Moose
Punisher (Copycat Killer Version)
Sometimes it takes some collaboration to make a song extra impactful. Phoebe Bridgers and Rob Moose’s EP Copycat Killer, which reimagines songs off of Bridgers’s wonderful Punisher, brings a new dimension to the original title track. Already heartbreaking, “Punisher’s” orchestral version is elevated by textured, shifting strings. The standout moment of the original was the chorus:
What if I told you
I feel like I know you
But we never met?
It’s for the best.
The swell the first time the chorus comes around, and the pizzicato (thank you 7th grade orchestra teacher Mrs. Lambert) the second time adds nuance—there’s yearning, there’s love, there’s sadness (all for Elliot Smith). It’s chill-inducing in the same way the Punisher version is, but there’s an added wonder thanks to Rob Moose’s skilled instrumentation. He transforms the chorus, once longing, but now almost comforted by parasocial connection.
Busta Rhymes
Look Over Your Shoulder (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
Sometimes when I listen to this playlist in order, I like to imagine Phoebe Bridgers, in the last lines of “Punisher,” saying “Wouldn’t know where to start/ Wouldn’t know where to stop,” only to be answered by Michael Jackson calling, “Just look over your shoulders, honey!” She doesn’t want to talk to you, Michael, she wants Elliot Smith! Just a funny thing that I do.
I remember when this song first leaked in the fall of 2018, originally billed as a Kendrick song featuring Busta, assumedly a leftover from Good Kid, m.A.A.d City. I listened to it almost on loop. Kendrick’s verse is a show of lyrical power, the sample is hookey and fun, and Busta’s part is pretty palatable. Altogether, a perfect song for setting out into junior year in the warmer months of autumn. Now I’m a bit older and it’s a bit colder, but “Look Over Your Shoulder” is still here for me. The song is a little more lyrical-miracle than my taste might be now, but it’s ok to indulge your younger, cornier side sometimes. And while Kendrick clearly outshines Busta in most every regard save rapid-fire spitting, “Look Over Your Shoulder” is yet another track that upholds the value of a solid collab.
Dolly Parton & Willie Nelson
Pretty Paper
Every year, I make it a tradition to end off my November playlist with a festive song. This year, it’s yet another team effort. Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, who originally wrote the song, give us a somber, slow antithesis to “Silver Bells.” People bustle on the street and the song’s subject writes a love letter with pretty paper, pretty pencils, and “pretty ribbons of blue.” In the midst of the festivities, though, sits a man asking for money. “And in the distance; the ringing of laughter/ And in the midst of the laughter, he cries.” Dolly and Willie give just the right amount of Christmas cheer, both clearly artists that have spent their whole careers mastering their emotive, dialed-back style of classic Country. Anti-consumerist icons!
You can listen to the entire playlist for November 2020, including extra picks from Positions and Pluto x Baby Pluto, here: