After winning R.A. The Rugged Man’s contest to rap over one of his singles, A-F-R-O from California has had to endure groan-inducing headlines such as “Is This 17-Year-Old Kid A-F-R-O The Future Of Old-School Hip-Hop?” and “A-F-R-O: The Future Of Vintage Hip Hop Is In Safe Hands”. Hardly his fault, so I’ll try not to hold it against him. Now that he’s released an EP with everyone’s favourite Canadian teetotaller Marco Polo, so I thought I’d see if there is more to this guy than being able to freestyle for hours. Here’s a track by track rundown of A-F-R-O Polo.
No Country for Old (Rap) Men: Does A-F-R-O live up to the hype?
Is there a bright future for the teenager dubbed "the future of old-school rap"?
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01. 'Long Time Coming' feat. Shylow
I’m immediately annoyed by dude’s voice. Or is that Shylow’s vocal timbre? Either way, this isn’t doing much for me. Not mad at the Redman scratch though.
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02. 'Nightmare on Fro Street'
While I certainly don’t expect this to be as good as MC Chill’s ‘Nightmare on Chill Street’, I’m beginning to suspect that A-F-R-O is far more concerned with the flash and dazzle of constructing endless multis than actually capturing the listener’s attention. It all kind of blends into in the background after a while. I do like the beat though.
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03. 'Swarm' feat. Pharoahe Monch
Monch makes like Eminem and burns dude on his own shit. Plus I have to deduct points for the shots fired at my number one sheila, Iggy.
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04. 'Sunshine and Flowers'
Dude suddenly activates ‘Skank Hoes’ mode out of nowhere, which is disconcerting coming from a dude who looks about 12 years old.
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05. 'Fro Armstrong'
In the immortal words of Mobb Deep, this very much ‘some old outer space shit that don’t even make no sense’. Fro uses the word ‘alien’ around 30 times, if that kind of thing is important to you.
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06. 'Use These Blues' feat. Eamon
Makes me want to ‘use this skip track button’.
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07. 'Lair of the Black Worm'
Now he’s talking about vampires, which confirms my suspicion that A-F-R-O has listened to far too much Chino XL and Last Emperor.
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08. 'Joe Jackson'
This is easily the best song on the EP, with a laid-back tempo that gives dude room to breathe. As a result, he sounds right at home and manages to keep my attention for the track’s entire duration.
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09. Verdict
Despite not being directly responsible for the tag ‘the future of old school rap’, ‘Fro doesn’t help matters with lines such as ‘the nineties are living – yes!’ There’s no denying that he can construct a complex verse, but only time will tell if A-F-R-O can match the conceptual heights of an Organized Konfusion in their prime.
This free EP plays like the modern-day equivalent of a demo tape, and based on that criteria it works as far as showcasing a talented young rapper dude who is more concerned with lyrical acrobatics than just getting by on attitude alone. Nevertheless, he’s still got some work to do before he’s ready for the major leagues in terms of being discussed in the same category as his myriad influences. In short? The potential is there but I’m looking for him to dig deeper.
As for the whole concept that ‘old school’ rap has a ‘future’? That’s simply a case of click-bait internets headlines at their most baffling and oxymoronic. Take a long, hard look at yourselves, rap blogs. Think about what you’ve done and have a 2000-word essay on what you believe defines old school hip-hop on my desk before class tomorrow morning or it’s a week’s detention for the lot of you.