100s Emerges from the Mothership

You know about The Mothership, yeah? The place from which all funky things emerge, occasionally descending upon mere mortals to infect them with the soul and spirit of The Funk. George Clinton piloted it. Andre 3000 and Big Boi were abducted by it at some point in the mid-90s. Snoop Dogg was once its most prominent resident, but aside from his occasional dalliances with sexual eruptions and EPs with Dam-Funk, he seems to have abandoned it for more lucrative pastures. When Bubba Sparxxx was down with Timbaland he showed promises of The Funk, but he zigged when the funk zagged and now is a permanent residence of hip-hop’s neo-hayride along with Colt Ford and Florida-Georgia Line’s “Cruise” remix. But at last, The Funk has found its heir apparent in the Berklee, California rapper 100s, who recently rode The Mothership up to the cosmos and emerged with IVRY, his stunning new EP, released yesterday on Fools Gold.

Pretty much all you need to know about IVRY lives in its cover. Space. Purple. The women, flanking him as he stands upon a pedestal, like the stone-cold mack that he is. That stance. That hair. It’s the sort of image that doubles as a mission statement. Welcome to Pimpin 100. Class starts at 69 o’clock, ends at 4:20, and grades will be measured in ounces of distilled dove tears. Begin.

The last time 100s made noise, it was with his overstuffed and undercooked Ice Cold Perm tape, a collection that positioned the rapper as a more fuck-minded alternative to underground Bay Area rappers like the Green Ova crew and Chippy Nonstop. Its spiritual predecessor was Snoop Dogg’s 1996 Tha Doggfather, whose cover 100s—who bears a striking facial resemblance to Snoop—nicked for his own aims. The tape was ultimately unremarkable, but showed promise—it offered 100s as a rapper with potential, but one who struggled to stand out from the pack.

With IVRY, 100s has come into his own, aligning with Fool’s Gold and transforming from a caterpillar to a purple, glittering butterfly, a perm firmly lodged on his head and the funk in his heart. He’s more confident now—where on Ice Cold Perm he seemed invested in proving his abilities as a pure rapper, now he’s more interested in using his voice as an instrument in and of itself, leaning into his flows and making sure every word is dripping with the type of sweat you work up after a marathon of carnality. He’s having fun here, paying homage to the great hip-hop sex anthems of the past without wallowing in pastiche. On “Slide on Ya,” he dips into Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up” flow momentarily, abandoning it once the point is made (compare this to Drake’s “Practice,” which turns “Back That Azz Up” into a song about feelings). It’s a record that has more in common with Zapp, Too $hort, and the smoother side of Parliament-Funkadelic than any contemporary release, without ever lapsing into the realm of rote genre exercise.

Because sometimes it pays to save the best for last, the tape’s closing track “Ten Freaky Hoes”, follows in the grand tradition of Too $hort’s “Freaky Tales”, outlining our protagonist’s various sexual misadventures, from his girl Porsche with a corporate job whose fuck-face is so weird she can’t have sex with the lights on, Camille with the fucked-up teeth, Donna whose mom caught him with a boner one time, Kelly who secretly pokes holes in condoms, and Maya who he caught trying to steal his conditioner, which is a corporate offense in many principalities in the Land of the Funk. (It also might be a call back to 8 Mile's "Ten Freaky Girls", which is just as deep.)

It’s tempting to compare 100s’ evolution to that of Danny Brown, whose career caught a third wind when he united with Fool’s Gold to release XXX, a dark, grime-influenced record which—depending on how you looked at it—was Brown’s last stab at youth or the lead-up to the most depressing hangover of all time. Whether through coincidence or the spirit of the label itself, both rappers used the label’s support to release records that were uniquely themselves, beholden to no trend but with the potential to create many. It’s fitting that “Inglish Outro,” the opening track of IVRY, feels like an exorcism of 100s’ older self. It leans heavily on 808s and crude synths, and as the track ends it bleeds into “Thru My Veins,” 100s’ true ascension to The Mothership.

When you are with Drew Millard, he's free; he's careless, he believes. He's also on Twitter. - whttp://www.twitter.com/drewmillard