New York means many things when it comes to Hip Hop. The Bronx is where the genre was birthed. Queens is where rappers like Nas and collectives like A Tribe Called Quest helped elevate the genre to the next level. Brooklyn is where the name of a borough turned into a chant recognizable across the country. Staten Island helped bring the genre’s most famous clan together. Yet within each borough there are neighborhoods, each competing for the title of Hip Hop’s hotbed. Harlem has arguably achieved that goal.
From Big L to A$AP Rocky, Harlem’s list of notable Hip Hop names goes on and on, their sound often recognizable by its raw, gritty sound. One of Harlem’s latest up-and-comers, Bodega Bamz, fits the mold well, offering up cocky lyrics filled with dozens of punchlines and the type of “Us vs. Them” mentality that makes Harlem Hip Hop so energetic. Yet while his sophomore project Sidewalk Exec is clearly in tune with Uptown, it offers little variation from the standard fist-in-hand Hip Hop, making for an album that is enjoyable but does little that hasn’t been done before.
Right from the jump Sidewalk Exec gives a straightforward explanation for the material contained in the roughly 40 minutes of music. “I done did everything in New York but fuck Va$htie / Kilo, keep it low key, I ain’t flashy,” spits Bamz on the album’s intro, “Down These Mean Streets.” His lyrics match his demeanor, both of which are as unapologetic and confident as the hard-hitting beat that is tied together by an oddly perfect xylophone chord in a move that seemingly comes right off of Statik Selektah’s computer.
In just over two minutes of bragging and boasting, Bamz gives listeners a playbook for the rest of the album. The lyrics are witty, with lines like “God gave me arms with a cookie jar reach,” but don’t expect Bamz to drop anything as thought-provoking as Kendrick Lamar or as street smart as Young Jeezy. The music serves its purpose; Bamz knows his lane.
Even with a decidedly trap feel, Bamz’s music is more refined than some of the subgenre’s mainstays, with the album’s second track “Bring Em Out” – which features fellow New York up-and-comers The Flatbush Zombies – opting to place a set of high-pitched piano notes overtop the familiar sounds of trap drums. With a beat fitting of a slow motion scene from a horror movie, Bamz raps an anthemic “bring ‘em out, bring ‘em out!” like so many rappers before him, seemingly unafraid of all those who are chasing Hip Hop’s title belt.
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“Woopty Woop Blahzay Blah,” the third track on Sidewalk Exec, marks a left turn for the album as Bamz moves away from the bragaddacio and instead paints a picture of the struggle around him. The piano is replaced with a wavy, electronic synth loop – perhaps the influence of Harlem’s hottest star, A$AP Rocky – and the boasting replaced with lines like “Ever seen somebody die right in front of you? Now you can’t sleep, nightmares for a month or two. / Ever been in beef so serious? Afraid for your kids, even got to hide your mother too.”
The same prideful message reigns supreme in the end however, as Bamz caps the verse by saying, “Be a man, stand tall; head high, chest out / Stay the same even when nobody fuck with you,” before letting out a loud “whoop!”
Throughout Sidewalk Execs, even as the theme of Bamz’s rhymes change from somber to swagger, the beats take a stance that is markedly alternative trap in a manner similar to Chicago’s Lucki Eck$; the production has a “go hard” feel, but is lighter and less focused on the drums than the instrumentation that lies above them. Tracks like “Gods Honest” featuring Joell Ortiz and “Cocaine Dreaming” typify the sound, with the trap themes of drugs and death in their lyrics overshadowed by beats that seem transfixed by the computer-generated electronic sounds that swirl across them.
“El-Rey” has more of an Underground Hip Hop feel, with a beat that sounds as if Felt (the duo consisting of Slug of Atmosphere and L.A. emcee Murs) could easily replace Bamz on the mic. “Just rap, music slash visionary. Dodge the pen with the pen, not the cemetery / Lyrically push the envelope with every mp3 released, more rappers deceased, the game needs a sweep,” raps Bamz, whose wordplay will fall short of impressing Hip Hop but will impress those who mistake Bamz for a simple cars, money, clothes emcee.
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Sidewalk Exec doesn’t push the envelope, but maybe that’s not the point here. For Bodega Bamz, a Spanish Harlem-based emcee with enough self-confidence to run for New York’s mayor, an album like Sidewalk Exec is offered up to let others know that Bamz’ town is still up to the task of defending its reputation, all else be damned.
