Lil Pump - Harverd Dropout (Review)

Martin_Canine LIL PUMP
Harverd Dropout
★★★★☆

Sense? Where we’re going, we don’t need sense!

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Let’s face it: the most fun music to party to makes you lose brain cells, and proudly so. Whether your love for rock made you pick Andrew W.K.’s I Get Wet for the wild evening you’re about to have, or you bang your techno addicted head to Scooter’s The Stadium Techno Experience, the most mind numbing tracks have the most stunning result when it comes to heating up the mood. That’s not an insult, both of these albums are tasty masterpieces within the genre of party music, and focus on what is needed to get people going while ignoring all the unimportant stuff like depth. For the trap loving audience, the equivalent to those two records is Lil Pump’s self-titled debut album from 2017. Subtle like a hammer to the crotch, tracks like D-Rose or Pinky Ring bang so hard that even after a gazillion listens they still make you mosh in codeine drenched excess. Now, with a delay of over half a year, the follow up Harverd Dropout finally arrived in all its 808 heavy anti-glory. And it’s heckin’ awesome.

There sure will be heavy disagreement with that last sentence, violent, bloody protests even, but the true question for those is: what does one expect from Lil Pump? Do you expect an Eminem-like lyrical massacre, the sense for economic criticism of a Kendrick Lamar, or simply a bunch of catchy ad libs and over-the-top flexing over hard hitting beats that doesn’t take itself all too seriously? If you picked the latter - ding ding ding, we got a right one! It’s a bit like the musical counterpart to the French cartoon show X-DuckX, a brainless, insane TV series about two extreme sports loving ducks that aired in the early 2000s. And the plenty of singles, the most successful having been I Love It, which was a worldwide top ten hit, already indicated the direction.

Lil Pump never dropped out of Harvard. Heck, he can’t even spell it. But this, as well as some other unrealistic proclamation and the release of a highly humorous educational video parody on his YouTube, show more clearly what people weren’t sure about when Lil Pump dropped: no, he’s not completely serious. While he DOES take the high art of hit making serious, his overall personality is as fun and easy going as his music sounds like, and he never truly intends to be a great rapper. The songs aren’t a failed attempt at creating clever lines, they are supposed to be this crazy and simple. That’s what puts him at least one league above the wannabe hard 6ix9ine, apart from the fact that unlike Tekashi, Lil Pump has already found a style that truly suits him - and is ten times more likable on top.

Like on its predecessor, the tracks found on Harverd Dropout are short in length, but still offer the experience of a full length song. It’s difficult in and of itself to make tunes of this duration that don’t sound cut off, but Lil Pump knows that when all is said and done in a song, he can as well end it instead of repeating the chorus a couple more times. Speaking of which, Lil Pump has maintained his ability to turn even the simplest of phrases into a radio ready hook: whether it’s that he stacks racks on racks on racks on racks, the fact that he admires how much of an f-word h-word you are, or the mere phonetic imitation of a motorbike - all combined with ridiculous flexing in the verses, and a hilarious indifference when it comes to recalling specific parts of his lifestyle. Promiscuity, drug consumption and luxurious articles are treated with a never before heard casualness. But Pump’s amusing delivery is only half the fun: the hard as heck, sometimes hectic and never smooth production contributes just as much to the ride. The beat of Drop Out sounds like GARNiDRLiA’s Exxxtacy was pressed through the trap grinder, Nu Uh is like a radio interference mixing with the hard drum kits of the songs it’s ought to play. Stripper Name turns a loop of female humming to a standout rhythm, and he’s most awesome when he performs on bouncy beats like those of Be Like Me, ION and Off-White.

SPOILER: What a surprise, Lady Gaga isn’t on his second album like he announced - a scenario may not have been as unlikely when she still made dance floor ready electro pop as it is today after she became the female American 2010s heiress to Elton John. But keep your head up, friends! Instead, we get a selection of well known rappers who are all in on the joke: Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Lil Uzi Vert, two thirds of Migos, YG, 2 Chainz, and his most frequent collaborator Smokepurpp, the latter of who delivers some of the more questionable lines of the album. They all do good jobs adjusting their style to fit Pump’s, although the spotlight always belongs to the MC with the colorful hairdo.

All in all, we get 40 minutes of pure entertainment, and nothing else. And that’s all you should ask for when listening to or purchasing a Lil Pump album. And in his style of mindless club bangers, he is on top of the game, with little other emcees having the charme and natural sense of catchiness to bring their vision of exaggerated bragging to life in such a blissfully sick manner.

Comments

Eh, it's less energetic than his debut so I didn't enjoy it that much. And the debut is actually a guilty pleasure of mine. - AlphaQ (6/2/2019)

Although "Lil Pump" had a bigger amount of very memorable tunes, his goofy and likable personality as well as the cool beats keep "Harverd Dropout" extremely entertaining. If you need your dose of feel good trap, this one is top notch. Also "Drop Out", "I Love It" and "Multi Millionaire" are just awesome. - Martin_Canine (6/3/2019)