Fuzzy G has all the unfocussed energy of youth on his side. On his Mixtape It’s Our Time, he grabs you, throws you against the wall, and hits you and hits you and hits you with musical ideas.
It’s like Patti Smith’s Horses in that sense: it bursts so hard and so often at you, Fuzzy transcends the limitations of production, of self-knowledge, of desire, in a whirligig of sound. And that is what It’s Our Time is about, it isn’t about hip hop, or electric guitars, or mash or mix, it’s about the cleansing power of sound. on track after track, you don’t know what you want to pick up on first. A pretty good flow on “Out Of Mind”, has a sample looped, a live drummer, an easy going egotism, a conversation, a distracted flash of thought and it all comes together.
But does it come together well?
Yeah.
Sometimes.
Whenever some one says they are gonna take it to the next level, I’m reminded of 2Pac’s admonishment: “You ain’t even on my level” but if Fuzzy G loses me near the end of the track, it is never 100% lost because there is so much more than one sound going on. And by the very next sound “Scream Aloud”, Fuzzy G is spitting out an awesome rap (maybe the best on the mixtape), speedy, flowing, articulate, rat-a-tat. Any weakness in voice timbre (and, hey, he is better than Drake) is more than made up for in precision.
And so it goes through 15 tracks of throw down from this DC native who has just relocated to NYC. Hit and miss but whether hitting or missing, everything with an intense love of music. “Seedless fruit” is a jazz-blues number, “Optimistically Speaking” an r&b pop song which is simply epic in its heads on beauty and top to bottom melodic glory
By the end of the mix tape Fuzzy G has even taken on Kid Cudi with an emo electronic closer “The Begining Of The End” (a cliche, but Fuzzy G is prolly too young to know), you are lost as to where to place Fuzzy G in the rap firmaments.
I will say this: the mix tape is the equal of just about any one. As I’ve mentioned before, Fuzzy and rock nyc writer Woody Fuller are working together and so you may question my partiality. But get this. About six months ago one of my best friends sent me a rap CD by one of her friends sons. I reviewed one song. The one I liked. I wouldn’t go negative but I wouldn’t lie even for her.
Fuzzy G is a mess of energy, influences, and populist sound: he lacks focus and a clear identity, but he will get that in time. On the first song Fuzzy claims learning guitar gave him “the confidence and the swagger of a rapper, but the musical mind of a mozart”. This is what is happening here. And if it hasn’t reached any form of conclusion, if it isn’t entirely his time, time is still on his side.
You can check Fuzzy G out on myspace and he is is playing at the Bowery Poetry Club. Be there.
Date: Saturday, July 3, 2010
Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm
Location: 308 Bowery (between houston and bleecker street)