Project Pat-Cheez N Dope mixtape review

by Dan-O

History is not always written by the winners. Sometimes it gets written by random people. For most of my generation all narratives formed about hip hop were written from New York publications, often times about New York Hip Hop. Once Southern hip hop took over the radio (as West Coast Hip Hop did before it) these outlets were forced to accept it and begrudgingly, they did; as did hipster alternative blogs. Where I live, in Maine, the most common Southern Hip Hop phrase is “I love Southern Hip Hop I listen to Outkast.”

It’s easy to understand how unique someone like Gucci Mane can seem if you don’t know who Project Pat is. He knows though. When a diss song called “Birds Of A Feather(All My N#$%’s)” surfaced it had Gucci doing his thing: dissing TI, Young Jeezy, Yo Gotti and everyone else but in the midst of all the ill will he admitted who his favorite rapper is…and it’s still Project Pat.

The Memphis legend’s mixtape from earlier this year named Cheez N Dope is likely the reason for that. If this art form is known to explore the bad guy character, no one has done it more thoroughly than Project Pat. Its twenty six tracks long with six interludes and an intro which for anyone else would break up the flow and consistency of the project; for Cheez N Dope they make a strange kind of sense; a rambling unhinged narrative that holds together an aggressive body of work. Drumma Boy and Lex Luger lend their trademark spooky muscular bounce to the menacing landscape of penitentiary talk, strip club scenery and gun shot sound effects.

This mixtape came out in January and its June right now, no singular project stands as more unremittingly hard-hitting; from its first real song Bare Face Robbem all the way to track twenty six You Kno What It Is (which opens with Pat putting a gun in someone’s face and asking to open the safe). In a sing song sway of a flow he laces remorseless sexist and violent verse after verse that I can’t get enough of. As an example “…needed her light bill paid her knees hit the floor, oh my golly on that molly she’s a sexy dolly, ran through her p*&$% like some tracks my dick the trolly (Papers N Cups).”

If you are looking for an example of how cruel and politically incorrect hip hop is Cheez N Dope would be a great political football. It’s completely unapologetic and because of that just as cohesive. Getting sucked into it is like entering a different world, maybe its best to think of Project Pat as the hip hop version of Johnny Rotten spitting into the crowd or Lemmy growling Ace of Spades. He wears the persona so completely that the five guest verses from associate Nasty Mane seem only to highlight the difference between legendarily nasty and common place nasty.

Southern Hip Hop history isn’t a tidy mixture of UGK and Outkast, its 8ball & MJG cracking skulls, Devin The Dude in the bathroom (Boo Boo’n) and Project Pat playing with his voice while he threatens everyone. His music is more hardcore right now than Gucci Mane, Chief Keef or anyone else in the mixtape universe. Drank and That Strong, Weed Smoke, and Jack One are mean mug classics as harsh as they are catchy and proper respect should go to DJ Spinz, Lil Awree, Ricky Racks, and everyone who brought this ugly pulsing sound to Project Pat. I’m sure he sneered when he heard every beat, as ugly and depraved as Trap degenerates into the more it fits him like a glove. How scary is that?

Nastiest track-Burn Me A N#$%%

Least Nasty track-Keep It 1 Hunnid

stream or download Cheez N Dope below:

http://www.datpiff.com/Project-Pat-Cheez-N-Dope-mixtape.441139.html