Westside Gunn the self-pronounced FlyGod continues to impress with his curation of albums and music videos.
“Peppas” is the latest video off of Westside Gunn’s new album, 10 and features legendary hip hop duo, Black Star. Getting the seldom featured duo of Yaiin Bey and Talib Kweli on a track is a major coup for Westside. The legendary Brooklyn rhymers have made sure to not oversaturate their sound, going over two decades in-between albums. For the “Peppas” video, Westside bridges the gap between the “hood” and the glamors of the hip hop world. The visual of legendary hip hop figures returning to where it all began, just kicking it on the block adds a down-to-earth feel to the abstract sounding record. A juxtaposition that leans on the fact that most rappers earn their stripes in these communities, thus it’s all one big cycle.
Visual Breakdown
The record’s title itself is the name of a popular Jamaican restaurant in Bedford-Stuyvesant, one of Brooklyn’s more renowned neighborhoods. The Conducter Williams produced track features the typical ear catching soul samples that fans have come to expect from a Westside project. Additionally, Kweli, Bey, and their abstract and philosophical rhymes serve as the perfect foil to Westside Gunn’s in your face style.
Furthermore, each rapper’s verse conveys a similar message in their own way: their view of the world while subsequently letting you know how great they are. Concurrently, they gather with their homies on the block, enjoying the food and mingling with the restaurant staff. The entire record and video plays on the theme of the varying personalities and minds in the hood. Although a group of black males hanging around the block may be stylized as one, there are various personalities, ideologies and general life ethos at play within that group dynamic.
Best Lyrics
Embed from Getty ImagesMatte-black dynamite, blast radials, black radio
– Yasiin Bey
Core capability, flaco facility
Fly guy, do or die, Bed-Stuy energy
Embed from Getty ImagesClaimin’ La Costra Nostra, we in love with the coca
– Talib Kweli
They hit niggas with the R.I.C.O., white people put it in cola
For generational wealth, they standin’ on they ancestor’s shoulders
After burnin’ down Tulsa, Oklahoma
My favorite fiend went to rehab
– Westside Gunn
Two weeks later, he was back a addict again
He was three dollars short, had to drag him from the Benz wagon again
Lastly, FlyGod.
Embed from Getty Images
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