Denzel Curry – King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2
The rap landscape has long been filled with reliably powerful lyricists, turning phrases and spinning yarns at a clip the rest of them could only hope to catch up with. There are artists who add in or focus on production mastery, polishing or grinding down tracks to fit particular moods. And occasionally, these skills come together in the hip-hop concept album, bringing theme and theatrics under one umbrella. Sometimes that concept is the presentation of an alter ego—think Makaveli, Dr. Octagon, Slim Shady. Sometimes it’s stylistic world-building like Wu-Tang Clan’s sonic dojo. Sometimes it’s autobiographical or observational in the manner of Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city.
And then there’s Denzel Curry, slowly spreading out from his Florida home base through the rest of the industry with what’s turning into a superpower of inhabiting different emotions and characters within songs, throughout tracklists, and across multiple albums. His new mixtape King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2 revisits inspirational ground Curry covered more than a decade ago. It’s a second travelogue through Memphis, Houston, and other offshoot rap scenes across the South, celebrating some of the music that entertained and first inspired him. Curry takes on the rap persona of “Big Ultra,” spending the better part of half an hour lecturing peers to not just secure the bag but protect and maintain it without distractions—”Stack your money up, be about your business/’Cause hoes gon’ be hoes, they come with a wish list.”
Curry loads up King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2 with clear and credible delivery of regional production styles and vocal cadences, references to representative songs and artists, and a critical mass of guests. He splits “Set It” with Maxo Kream, who claims to shoot both his gift and his gun like NBA legends shoot baskets, and “Cole Pimp” with Juicy J promoting money-holding and girl-folding. And while Curry narrows his storytelling focus here much more so than, say, the existentialism of TA1300, between his shifting speeds and timbres he still sounds like 15 voices in a roster of 30, able to chant multi-meaning boasts with That Mexican O.T. in “Black Flag Freestyle” or switch up to triple-time on “Hoodlumz” vs. A$AP Rocky and PlayThatBoiZay.
The most vital of the features here come from Kingpin Skinny Pimp, a rapper and producer who supported Three 6 Mafia and other musicians through Memphis’ come-up but missed out on concomitant exposure. Interludes and samples with him and his protegés (including Gimisum Family’s “Fear No Evil” featuring in this release’s “Hot One”) cast him as the mixtape’s conscience, the true if uncrowned king of local street knowledge. It’s a supportive move by Curry that gives Kingpin more direct name recognition than his recent piecemeal rediscovery by TikTok users and Russian phonk producers.
The production here is spread far and wide among the Working on Dying crew, Hollywood Cole, RicoRunDat and a whole lot more. There’s an outside chance that this might be the best collection of backing tracks in Denzel Curry’s catalog—the sparkling, cooing “Ultra Shxt,” the quiet storm of “Cole Pimp,” the industrialized bass buzz of “Hit the Floor.” Even if you’re not a devotee of the Southern rap sounds Curry’s lifting up, the cuts and styles here are diverse enough to grab your ear and not let go. If he’s not purposefully thinking about rap in terms of production design and stagecraft, he is—we are—incredibly fortunate that he’s seemingly stumbled on such concepts over and over again. King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2 swiftly, strongly reinforces Denzel Curry’s reputation as one of the best artists in hip-hop today.
Label: Loma Vista
Year: 2024
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Denzel Curry : King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2
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