Mixtape Review-Underground Cassette Tape Music by Gangsta Boo & Beatking

by Dan-O

In no uncertain terms, Underground Cassette Tape Music is the best singular Southern Hip Hop mixtape of 2014. That’s a pretty high compliment in a year full of energized weirdo Southern bounce. The first track Come Off Dat begins with a first rapped verse from Gangsta Boo “Bloody bodies in the yard, like the zombie apocalypse. The walking dead I’m so so scared and I don’t know how to get up out this B#$%.” I’m so glad she started the tape with the image of zombies. The whole project carries the intensity and violence of Memphis rap (that Three 6 Mafia played a large part in popularizing) and the drugged lethargic Screwston sound. The combination is a bit like the old school zombies: strong, scary and hung over feeling. That track and the next one (Ain’t Shit Changed) are produced by one of my favorite Texas commodities Stunt N Dozier. He does a great job of creating a gear between Three 6 style crunk and Houston rider music.

It’s such a great collaboration because the songs aren’t haunted by any cheap competitive BS. Beatking never feels like he’s constructing verses to top Gangsta Boo (he has some great disgusting punch lines however). He respects her position as a lion of this genre. Beatking also produces at a very high level: Paper Chase is trunk rattler so rewarding that he stops in the middle of his verse to declare “B#$% I know this sample mean!” If Beatkings production has a signature it’s his repurposing of classic southern beats like Roll Hard and Like A Pimp 2015. The usage of beats everyone should recognize, tributes to Lord Infamous and Pimp C, and guest features from Paul Wall Lil Flip and 8 Ball make this a crash course on Southern hip hop; If you’ve never liked it before you could play Underground Cassette Tape Music and know a lot.

If every good mixtape has a song you want to hear again and again this one has 13 of them (2 interludes). Gangsta Boo once described herself as an actress that usually gets horror roles to play and that’s an important part of understanding her. She’s never making these songs so you can believe every word. She makes a very unique form of music that includes tracks like Dirty Hoe where she’s the most disturbingly vulgar element of the song starting it by saying “Give that B##%%^ some X you might be in luck. Say she don’t want no sex dirty hoe just wanna suck. She go f*&k all her boys then go home to her man she a dirty hoe and she do not give a damn!” Having a woman captain a song like this doesn’t make it less sexist but it certainly adds a dimension to it. But Boo is more than an important female emcee she’s a dope artist and probably a mixtape hall of famer at this point.

If you need evidence that she can pull off songs others can’t just listen to Slab Crusher where Gangsta Boo spits over a Pimp C sampled chorus and gets a verbal co-sign from the godfather of Memphis, 8 Ball. While flossing in the verse she’s still sending shout outs to people in prison and lauding street code and loyalty. On Mashing Boo drops her best verses talking about missing her home on tour and people ripping off her style on their records while going to her shows. It’s great that this pairing worked. You can feel the respect they have for each other and the only feeling that surpasses it is the feeling of immense confidence they have in what their doing.

Stream or download Underground Cassette Tape Music below:
http://www.datpiff.com/Gangsta-Boo-Beatking-Underground-Cassette-Tape-Music-mixtape.655911.html