While Miami's lone wolf MC Black Bobby continues to fight the good hip-hop fight, let it be known he doesn't want to do so at a series of sausage fests. "A lot of hip-hop events I go to -- or actually that I don't go to -- are just a roomful of dudes and testosterone, a lot of sweaty, hot dudes rapping at each other," he says.
"That's cool on one level," he continues, "but women are major contributors to pop music and hip-hop, and especially in terms of radio, that's what people are catering to these days. Women don't have enough hip-hop given to them that's not negative. It doesn't have to be about booty-clapping all the time."
So while a lot of Black Bobby's early material circulating around the Internet was on a '90s boom-bap tip, his recent mixtape, Negro Dialect, goes for a more Miami-influenced, inclusive approach. While the first chunk of the 26 tracks tow the traditional hip-hop line, as the tape goes on, things get more left-field and finally veer into straight-up dance music territory.
Take "Major Blazer," which as its name suggested tackled Major Lazer's "Pon di Floor," while the much weirder "Bobby's Song (On that Elmo)" raps of the Vagabond (pronounced "Vaj-a-bond") and Back Door Bamby over a muppet-laced track.
Then there's the track we present to you today, "Miami Ave," which is a slice of straight-up dubstep. It's an ode to downtown in general, and the 14th Street club circuit's dubstep scene specifically. The beat is Flux Pavilion's "Got to Know," but instead of going for a cheesy fake English/Jamaican thing, Black Bobby just refreshingly treats it as an extra bass-heavy beat. Still, listen closely to the second verse to the shout-outs to all the locals doing it big for dubstep.
Still, don't take this as a stylistic jumping on the bandwagon, but rather as a stretching of stylistic muscles. His next mixtape will go back to more boom-bap hip-hop, he says -- although the underground clubby influence will still remain.
"People got more excited over my dance tracks on this tape, maybe because it was unexpected. It's like Jadakiss said, that a lot of rappers were mad at the south, but he said you can't be mad at the south, you have to change your style up," says Bobby. "You have to have variety as an MC."
The next tape, Presidential Shit, is set to feature more original beats, as well, and is due out November 13. The release party takes place at Sweat Records on November 19, where Black Bobby will be backed by his still-unnamed new live band. More details on that as they come, but in the meantime enjoy "Miami Ave." Womp womp.
Download: Black Bobby - "Miami Ave"