NY Times reviews the new Grand Hustle mixtape

YOUNG DRO AND YUNG LA
“Black Boy White Boy”
(mixtape)

No one has ever accused the Atlanta rapper T.I. of harboring a weird streak, but his taste in protégés would seem to indicate that beneath the blank grin and neatly constructed rhymes beats an oddball’s heart.

The T.I. apprentices Young Dro and Yung LA, who share this mixtape from T.I.’s Grand Hustle imprint, offer competing versions of the hip-hop eccentric. Of the two Young Dro is the star, a word nerd with a voice like a revving engine and a gift for fantastical imagery. He namedrops the Thundercats, Punky Brewster and “hammerhead sharks in Bermuda,” describes his car as looking “like Almond Joy” and taunts, on “Ain’t I (remix),” “The choppers in the trunk will make you do the Macarena.” He’s also a vocal comic, adopting a surf-prep accent on a series of interludes and, on “Shower,” sculpturing a rhyme where there is none: “All my diamonds are tangerine/Throwing this money like Dan Marino” (leaving the “o” on the cutting room floor).

This arresting collection of lean, stinging synthesizer-driven beats suits Young Dro well, their velocity acting as a counterbalance to his density. Yung LA, on the other hand, seems to slither atop these songs, a goofball who bleeds words into each other so that it sounds as if he’s almost always slurring. Mohawked and incessantly describing himself as futuristic, Yung LA suggests a twice-mimeographed version of André 3000 of Outkast, the early years. Which is why it’s so shocking, on “Woah,” to hear him complain about other rappers imitating his style. Even a cursory listen makes it clear he’s not the one worth copying. JON CARAMANICA
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