Permanent Scars and Tattoos: A Walk Through Denzel’s Dark Mind
By Marcos Léon and Matt Ford
SCORE: 8
Prefer to listen? You can hear the review or read the abridged transcript below:
Marcos: Denzel is from Carol City, Fla. and is one of the progenitors of the SoundCloud Rap genre.
Matt: He’s bringing a lot to hip hop right now, definitely one of the biggest contenders for revolutionizing what we talk about in hip hop music and combining many sounds, as is characteristic of Florida hip hop music.
Marcos: I didn’t listen to very much of this genre. Not to say that it was bad but it just didn’t draw my attention, with a few exceptions. Lil Pump’s “Gucci Gang” — it catches you, it keeps you. If you say you don’t like “Gucci Gang,” you are a goddamn liar. Denzel’s “Ultimate” is very much in a similar vein. I don’t know somebody who’s somewhat interested in hip-hop who says they don’t like “Ultimate.” Just the chorus, the way that he goes in, it’s this really interesting mixture of rock and rap sounds.
Matt: I’d like to see what path he followed to get to this particular sound he’s created with his third studio album. As far as Florida hip hop, I was introduced obviously by “Gucci Gang” and XXXTentacion who’s lyrical content is similar to the kind of music that Denzel is producing.
Marcos: Denzel and X were actually close friends and lived together for a period of time.
Matt: Which definitely is evident in both of their music. X brought on a lot of emotion which is really rare in hip hop, to talk about being, for example, “SAD!” which climbed to №1 a week after X’s death.
Marcos: TA1300. He wanted to do a lot with this. He has it broken into three acts: the Light side, which was released Wednesday, July 25; Thursday for the Gray side; and the Dark side on Friday. I like the concept although I think, going into his style, even the Light side deals with dark aspects. The song with GoldLink — it sounds like a GoldLink song. It’s very upbeat, it’s very catchy, high energy, but when you get into the lyrics, part of what Denzel is saying is in reference to suicide.
Matt: [The Light side] is my favorite part of the album and, yes, it’s not that light! He said in an interview that he was in this very dark space and, coming into this light space, he had a lot more happiness in his life and that’s where Light was born. I would assume that the album originally was going to be extremely dark. The intro’s hook says Welcome to the darker side of taboo/All I got is permanent scars and tattoos/Take another step in the path that you choose/Make a bad choice in your path then you lose. It sounds like a warning to oneself to choose the right path, and also a warning to listeners. The intro is brief then you have the two happy-go-lucky songs, “Cash Maniac” and “Black Balloons,” then “Sumo,” which is a lighter song but it’s talking about money and fame and the sound of it is still very dark. It lends itself to the trap sound that runs through the rest of the album.
Welcome to the darker side of taboo
All I got is permanent scars and tattoos
Take another step in the path that you choose
Make a bad choice in your path then you lose
Marcos: As a concept for the album, I did want this want to be more fleshed out. The Light side maybe should have been the brighter side that dealt with happy thoughts of some sort. It could’ve been love between two depressed people, which seems to be this taboo person that he’s referring to. But we don’t really get that. We get TA1300’s background, his background — both depressed. We get “Black Balloons,” this very upbeat song. GoldLink comes in, does his thing, but it’s still referring to dark things. And “Cash Maniac,” also this very upbeat, happy, bouncy song , then “Sumo,” which is just a trap song. It’s very similar to “Super Saiyan,” “Switch It Up,” and “Mad I Got It.” It could have been a smoother transition instead of jumping from two very upbeat, bouncy songs to the more trap, aggressive sound that he’s known for.
Matt: Certainly. “Sumo” did nothing for me on Light. Even if he had just taken the lyrics and put them on a different track, it would’ve made sense but sonically, it didn’t fit. On the record, he’s talking about women, molestation, victimization, loyalty, the dark sides of relationships and, as you said, two very depressed people — taboo. How much you are able to help each other is the big question throughout the album. On “Black Balloons,” he talks about the laments and price of frame. He admits to being slept on as an artist, the superficial aspirations of today’s rappers, but it sounds like money isn’t making him happy and he doesn’t actually seem to say what caused him to create Light, what sparked this happiness in his life. I’m wondering if he’s still in that dark place and he’s just kind of coming out into the light.
Marcos: In the interview where he talked about the formation of the album, he said that Light was made last.
Matt: I wonder if he actually intended TAB1300 to be a three-part concept album. Lyrically and musically, Gray and Dark go together and “Cash Maniac” and “Black Balloons” feel like they’re thrown in there. And maybe when he made these two tracks, he decided to break the songs up into a concept album.
Marcos: It definitely feels like Gray and Dark were thought of together. They fit his sound and style of this very aggressive delivery and noisy, active instrumentals. But I don’t see them connecting to “Cash Maniac” and “Black Balloons” — which isn’t to say those are bad songs. They’re just very different styles from him.
Matt: The production was so unique from the rest of TA1300. Some of the songs do start to sound the same even if the thematic content is different. I was looking for more sonic versatility. Two of my favorite songs from Gray are “Switch It Up” and “Mad I Got It.” According to a note on Genius, “Switch It Up” may be addressing bipolar disorder, switching back between two extremes of emotion. The way that he played that musically, lyrically, and in his flow and delivery was really powerful and captured the duality in his emotions. And with “Mad I Got It,” I love what he’s addressing here, which has been addressed since the 70s — how black men are murdering one another over jealousy, how somebody got it and somebody else don’t instead of collaboratively working together to build community. He’s highlighting this common individualistic persona among rappers, the hierarchy, competition, the kill-or-be-killed mentality, and that is the reality that Denzel is talking about. I think he reckoned with that appropriately, especially with topics like capitalism. It’s pretty brave for someone as young and talented as Denzel to discuss these topics so openly.
Marcos: You see a lot of rappers talking about, Why we keep coming at each other instead of working together? J. Cole does that. Kendrick does that. Denzel did it in his way. It doesn’t feel like he broke from style to hit us with philosophizing rap a lá J Cole. It does feel like, Imma talk about this shit cuz y’all need to hear this shit. To me, the only song that isn’t really good on the Gray part is “Super Saiyan”; the other four, I fuck with heavy. Those songs are so goddamn good. It’s such a busy, hectic instrumental. It fits with “Sirens” and sets the tone for what they’re about to go into. First verse, he’s talking about, Eyesight is a gateway to a new day and the same hate. Just seeing something doesn’t change it and that seems like commentary on Internet activism. He goes to more forms of viewing something, like, “The revolution will never be televised,” and it just keeps building. You have these allusions to faith, referencing Zion. This single verse jumps over so many things.
Matt: J.I.D has an interpolation of the “Star-Spangled Banner” and it’s so well-written. The entire verse goes through so many flows and voices, a very personalized delivery which was so beautiful on the song. Curry also plays a lot with eyesight. The album art for Dark brings the attention to his eyes. It draws you into the darkness that he sees. And on Light, his eyes are bulged out. He’s against a pink background, seems like he’s happier but very startled by something… I love how he uses eyesight as a visual, lyrical and sonic metaphor and tries to give us a sense of what he’s seeing in his day to day life whether it be drawing national attention to police brutality and anti-blackness or love, romance, depression and relation.
Marcos: Part of what you’re saying that I agree with is how much their voices come through. These two rappers seem to have brought out the best in each other. Curry sent it to J.I.D. He sent back his verse and Curry was like, Fuck, I gotta have another verse now. I see just how much they push and elevate each other and I’m excited for this kind of rap music. Denzel jumps through at least 2 different flows in the first verse alone, then J.I.D. comes in and his flow is impeccable. These rappers both are so skilled in their deliveries and that’s part of what drew people to Denzel in the first place, his delivery is so aggressive, so strong, he’s gonna say what he wants to say and he’s gonna figure out a fucking way to do it.
Matt: I appreciate how much these artists play off of one another and they’re very young but this song showcases both of the wonderful talents in their voices and how they can use them so differently. They might yell then whisper then mumble then spit then sing then yell again. They just throw so many elements at you that it comes together very, very well.
Eyesight is a gateway to a new day and the same hate
Marcos: The way Denzel closes this track as the instrumental fades away and it’s just his voice carrying what’s left lends to a nice transition into “Clout Cobain.” I shared with you the video when it came out. That song is heavy as fuck.
Matt: This dude is talking about something that desperately needs to be talked about.
Marcos: This song is especially important right now because of these young artists that are getting clout dying. In the last year, Lil Peep and XXXTentacion have died — an overdose and a murder, respectively — but both of these artists seemed to idealize or romanticize the idea of suicide. Also Lil Xan, this very young SoundCloud rapper, was on drugs a lot until Lil Peep’s death and now seems to be saying he’s trying to be clean, he’s not trying to go down that same path but [drug abuse and suicide are] still out there a lot. We’re in an age where suicide is this huge issue but also a joke. You look at memes that deal with depression and a lot of them are like, Oh, haha, Imma kill myself. As you get older, you learn that that’s a joke meant to make you laugh at the struggles you’re dealing with. The way that he places it, especially in the video, is that his depression and possible ideas around suicide are seen as something to sell, a performance to put on in front of people and people cheer it on. It’s part of their entertainment.
Matt: I struggle with this idea so much because we’re seeing that young black dudes are really fucking depressed, and it’s possibly even an epidemic. It’s so easy for young black men, women and others to be killed and in this case for young black men, you don’t talk about your emotions in public or with your father, mother or friends. You just hold them all in. So now we’re in this age where suicide is so vastly discussed — and made fun of, celebrated or spectacularized. He also talks a lot about Kurt Cobain. He says that Nevermind was has favorite album by Nirvana and [TA1300’s] lyrical content and thematic substance definitely highlights his appreciation of Kurt Cobain and romanticization of suicide. So Curry, in the “Clout Cobain” video, uses the music industry as a metaphor — the crowd watching him be sad and eventually hang himself at the end of the video and they’re like, Oh, you really are sad? We’re so sorry but it’s too late cuz you’re dead now. So is it really all performance or is it, like, I’m actually sad but I have no other way to say it but to make it through hype-ass music and then, one day, I die, and people realize, Oh, shit.
Marcos: You watch the video and he’s dancing to it. But you hear what he’s saying and you see his face and what people are doing around him in the video — and in the world, based on what he’s talking about — and it does seems like this hype aesthetic, this performance, and underneath it is this blistering sadness.
Matt: One other thing that I wanted to point out was whether we can call his aesthetic “queer.” It’s not very common to see young black dudes with clown face makeup. The album cover for Light had a bright, pulsing pink background. His way of mixing up how young black men display their emotions is possibly even beyond what his lyrics are yet able to say. Whether he has found the way to express his emotional intelligence sonically and lyrically is evident in his visualizations. I hope that [his musical and visual expressions] sync more in the future.
Marcos: It does seem like, as far as major artists go, they are once again playing with what is acceptable for young men to wear cuz Lil Uzi Vert wears some queer-ass shit and I love it and his appearance is very much playing on this idea of gender sometimes. I’m here for it! I like that they’re doing this. Another one is Swae Lee from Rae Srem.
Matt: I’m excited for the future. We have Big Freedia who’s been in songs by Beyoncé and Drake, and she was featured in a short clip of the “In My Feelings” video. But then on the new Travis Scott album, a trans woman was taken off the album. So rap is very much grappling with different identities and internal emotions coming outward into appearance but I love the direction where it’s going. Most of all, it shows that progression is slow but in the time of Millennials, in 2018, it’s not something that we can any longer run away from.
Marcos: On the Dark side of the album, I don’t have much to say about “The Blackest Balloon” but that Denzel explicitly mentions Lil Peep and says, Ain’t shit changed since Lil Peep died. To me, that’s him saying that “Clout Cobain” is about this performativeness, this, Y’all want us to come up and be hype and perform for y’all and don’t give a shit about our feelings. But also, rappers are still glorifying this drug abuse that killed Lil Peep. Even Lil Pump has said that he’s clean but his most recent single was about addicts. A lot of rappers came up on this drug use message and say, I’m not gonna do that anymore, this shit’s unhealthy, but then continue to make music around it. It’s not necessarily a throwaway song but it didn’t catch my attention as much as a lot of the others.
Matt: “Percs” stood out to me because now, he’s been in the industry for a while and he has a lot to say about it — how men are killing one another and killing ourselves, drugs, depression, loneliness. What I’m surmising as someone who’s close to his age as a young, black 20-something is that he’s sad about seeing his friends die. He is a rapper who’s made an amount of fame and fortune for himself and with that comes leaving your homies behind and not really being able to help them other than through your music. I’m wondering if he’s wondering whether his music is reaching those same people who he left behind.
Marcos: J. Cole’s song [“1985”] tried to give a lot of these young rappers advice and they kind of laughed at him and he said that he was trying to take shots at them. Even coming from one of their own, I don’t know if they would have listened, and if they did listen, would they go on continuing to perform the same way they do their drug use and other things?
Matt: I don’t think that’s something that you understand when you’re first coming out. All you care about is clout but clout don’t really give you shit. It doesn’t help you or make you happy or make you feel whole. I think Denzel is in a space where he’s starting to really grapple with these subjects and he’s very much in development. I expect a much stronger message with his next album. Curry is far beyond the emotional intelligence of a lot of his peers as he progresses in his career.
Marcos: “Vengeance” to me is this hard song. I like this song. I fuck with this song. I like the verses these guys drop. It’s so full of energy. Fucking JPEGMAFIA, this line: I ain’t Drake / This ain’t 6ix / It’s a nine — whew! He’s just doing him. I love this dude and how much his energy goes off.
Matt: I love “Vengeance” and “Black Metal Terrorist” because they really hold the weight of the album. You’re gonna appreciate it and vibe with it whether you want to or not. It reminds me of rap’s current love affair with Dragon Ball Z, which he mentions earlier in the album —
Marcos: His reference to fucking Raichu.
Matt: Right! When the album is closing, you go back to your iTunes screen and look into Denzel’s eyes and you’re like, Damn, dude! Thanks!
Marcos: I could put this album on and just listen all the way through. The energy is there. The vibe that carries you through is so strong.
Matt: I love his sonic innovation with this as a hip-hop album. He introduces a lot of dubstep and electronic influences, it’s very clearly a Florida album. He has all these brilliant choruses and hooks, is extremely catchy, his flows and rhymes are well-crafted and packed with emotion. It’s a brilliant album.
