Main Attrakionz Fuck The World

Rap is no country for old men. Nas was 16 when he first set the underworld of rap on fire. Mobb Deep were 19 while creating their classic, The Infamous album. By 20, J Dilla had formed his first group with Phat Kat and began laying the foundation for the game-changing sound he would perfect in his lifetime. Ice Cube was fresh out of college when he became the driving lyrical force behind NWA. Though the genre is now having to deal with middle age, hip hop is a young man's game. The culture at large is reliant on the energy and rebelliousness of youth to keep it fresh when it's been stagnant for too long.

I'm not quite sure if Main Attrakionz will reach the plateaus of the aforementioned legends, but they have certainly gotten off to a good start. The pair of 20-year-olds from Oakland, California are proving that hip-hop music can still sound fresh and dissonant more than 30 years since its inception. The music sounds like the result of a night of pill-popping with Daedelus and blunt-smoking with Lex Luger in the same studio. A beat of equal parts hi-hats and ambient never sounded as good on paper as it does when Squadda B and Mondre Man are rapping over it.

Much like Prodigy and Havoc, the pair spit blunt rationalizations of dramatic behavior ("Thinkin bout when my uncle died in my mothafuckin' face, heron overdose that's why I love how the bone taste") that show rather than tell traits of brilliance.

The mixing is also a bit interesting and unorthodox. Where most participants in the genre are trying to make their music as pristine as possible and have the MC front and center in the mix, these two kids like a little mud on their slaps. You'll often notice that the vocal tracks sound a bit pushed away, almost treated as an equal to other parts of the music rather than the most important part of the song.

Blackberry Ku$h is just one of more than 10 tapes the duo has released, some for free, since 2010. A few people seem to have taken notice of the group and the larger GreenOva collective; let's hope they can perform up to the par they're setting for themselves.

In this clip courtesy of Yours Truly, the duo takes us on a visit to East Oakland and into the world of Main Attrakionz.