It might be a Sunday night, but I still managed to get drunk and sassy, and that is in no small part owed to the remarkably trim MC Houston based Nigerian-American rapper, Fat Tony. Tony takes his name from the surly Simpson's mob-boss, who, over the past decade or so of the show, has acted as more of an enabler to the show's patriarch, Homer Simpson, then a genuine menace to the citizens of Springfield, [state name redacted]. I can unequivocally say that this young MC certainly was a bad influence on me tonight and is partially the reason why I'm typing this review at 130am in a craft beer haze instead of sleeping soundly with my partner in bed. I'm not complaining, though. Dude can go through a party in my headspace any day of the week as far as I'm concerned. Tony first turned heads with a feature off of A$AP Rocky's Live. Love a few years back, and has been keeping busy with several projects ever since, not the least of which was co-hosting Viceland's short-lived showcase, Vice Live. Work on Wake Up started immediately following the wrap up of Tony's hosting duties and was probably a necessary exercise in priority shifting following the abrupt end of his TV career.
Stylistically, Tony has some overlap with that of the man who introduced him to the spotlight, and both he and A$AP favor hard party-rockin' beats and have equally forceful flows. However, Tony's sound is more historically-centered, with clear influences drawn from the jazz-rap and soul preoccupations of De La Soul's Buhloone Mindstate and Ghostface Killah's Supreme Clientele, respectively. Tony also prefers to work with a single producer on each album, and this time he has teamed up with avant-garde LA producer Taydex. Taydex's beats swerve decidedly into the spectrum of chirpy, fried arrangements of misappropriated and b*sterdized samples, which defined the Soundcloud era. Taydex's influence is strongest on "Make It," but that track is far from exemplary of the album as a whole. Although, there isn't really a single track that can be singled out as representative of the sounds and themes of the album as a whole. "Godly" has some obvy Memphis horrocore vibes and might be my favorite track on the album, but the charm of "Big Ego" with its bright smack of '90s college rock bliss cannot be denied, and another standout "Run It Up" leans hard into lush soul samples, straining strings, and wet pattering beats, giving the album a much-needed dose of sensual sincerity. This earnestness is also present on the overt sex and shimmy banger, "Magnifique," which rides the line of trashy sex appeal and unimpeachable dignity of it's subject that I did not think was possible on a party track that compares the act of coitus to prepping fried chicken. I could go on, but every party has to come to an end at some point. Give this one a spin if you need something to unwind to late at night. It did the trick for me.
Grab a copy of Wake Up from Carpark records here.
