OK, firstly – there’s a new Billy Woods & Kenny Segal album, it’s called Maps, and on my first few listens I’m very excited to keep listening because I can feel it taking root on my brain.
I like this. I’ll link to a song or two at the bottom to give you a taste.
But then there’s this Aesop Rock song towards the end, which is good too, but it made me want to put some old Aes Rizzle on.
I’ll add another link to a personal favorite I still reach for periodically.
And that all got me to the song I actually want to highlight here. I never gave Aesop Rock’s The Impossible Kid a listen, apparently. Shame on me apparently for thinking he got middle-aged and less interesting.
The thing I always loved/admired most about his work, was how notebook conversational he could get. I say notebook conversational because unlike just shooting the crap with your friends, there’s this deeper, more creative, playful wrestling that comes from him writing it down and working out his distinct phrases and phraseologies.
You don’t listen to him for the choruses, you listen like you read Junot Diaz’s short stories.
I don’t know how else to describe this song, but it’s brilliant. Here are the lyrics to “Lotta Years.”
The kid that worked down at the local Baskin-Robbins
Got a tattoo of a lipstick print attached above his collar
I watch him relocating pistachio to a waffle
Thinking I had lost the plot if not the passion for the novel
He asked me what I wanted. I ordered something daft
He said he liked the tattoo Alex drew me of the bats. Thanks
I like it too but modestly confess in present company my coloring is not the main event
Look at that neck. The message is immediate the guy F’s chicks
I spent a lot of years making friends with cool artists
So when they drew me tattoos I could truly feel important
It’s a 22 year old inside a cube of brick and mortar
Got me questioning my morals in a corny pecking order
I should give a sh**less
Cherry? No. Whip? Yes
Lotta Years
Uh, Lotta Years
The girl that worked down at the local juice place
Got a head full of dread locks down to her waist
I watch her add the spinach to the ginger to the grapes
My hair was underwhelming, my juice was fing great Some lady orders Maca, compliments the locks She asked how many years it took the girl to grow the crop “It took a lot of years and then eventually I cut them, kept them, reattach them anytime I want them.” My mind’s fing blown
Future is amazing, I feel so f***ing old
I bet you clone your pets and ride a hoverboard to work
I used a folding map to find the juice place in the first
These kids are running wild I’m still recovering from church
You should have seen me in the nineties I could ollie up a curb
You should have seen me in the eighties I was bumping New Edition dragging acne into Hades
Lotta Years
