Joey BADA$$: “1999”

Photo by Conor Lamb

We’ve all been there, it’s late May and it’s 25 degrees out. You buy a San Miguel 40 oz that evening, reignite an old weed habit and start saying “Ayo” more than usual. But then you wake up, and it’s pissing it down, you remember you’re in your twenties, people listen to DJ Fresh not DJ Premier on the bus, and you work in an office. It’s just a highly disheartening reality that Generation Y is gonna have to deal with. It’s probably why we all have burgeoning drink problems.

But luckily, NY rapper Joey Bada$$’s new mixtape can help transport you back to a time before Modestep and Chemtrails. The mixtape has a summery city haze flowing through it, it’s fuggy and it’s funky. It’s called 1999, but unless there’s a Limp Bizkit sample on it I haven’t picked up on, it should probably be called 1994. Joey spits over Doom and Dilla tracks like the 17-year-old Brooklyn punk he is, with a flow that’s casual and sexy. He also manages to be funny without being completely insane, which is a rarity in modern rap. It’s the sound of rolling slowly through the city on trucks, rather than rims.

Check it out for yourself below: