Send "Curren$y " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Years from now, we might look back and try to pinpoint exactly when Curren$y became one of the best rappers working, and wonder how we missed it at the time. Since his 2010 breakout Pilot Talk, the New Orleans rapper has reliably released a high-quality new mixtape or full-length album every couple of months, but he's remained perplexingly easy to overlook: as befits a rapper heavily indebted to weed culture, he seems less young-and-hungry and more like the guy who was always just around somehow. Committed, in a noncommittal sort of way.But don't let the hangdog pose fool you: it takes ferocious inner steel to put out this much consistently good music in so little time, and the fact that he's done so without disrupting the heavy-lidded calm of his pose only makes it more impressive. His latest release, the DJ Drama mixtape Verde Terrace, isn't his best work this year, or even in the last six months: that would be last June's Weekend at Burnie's. Like many recent DJ Drama mixtapes, it sags beneath some lazy or obvious beat selections. The boilerplate, rushed-feeling song titles reflect minutes of thought: "My Life is a Movie", "Run Dat Shit", "High Tunes". It contains the world's most unnecessary remake of Biggie's "Ten Crack Commandments", delivered entirely by Curren$y's Russian-doll miniature sidekick Young Roddy. And yet Curren$y has burnished his star to such a warm, hazy glow that whenever he appears on it, things snap immediately into focus. His weed talk has grown so metaphorically florid that it's entered its own realm: If you're a rapper who writes about getting high and you hear Curren$y say he gets "lifted like sanctions," how do you even begin to respond? His puns and double entendres continue to boast sneaky layers, à la "She puts the phone in her lap and when I call she comin'." Verde Terrace boasts fewer of these quotables than recent performances, but he still proves he can spin your head with startling ease a dozen or more times. Indeed, what often gets shortchanged in Curren$y's "weed rapper" label is the compelling slipperiness of his mind: "Nonchalant, but I'm very aware of what's going on," he assures us on "Pinifarina". His default mode is "easily unimpressed," an attitude surely honed from doing time in shifting rap regimes from No Limit to Cash Money. "I'm from New Orleans, I stunt/ In a blue moon once... But I don't be doin' too much," he raps on "Ways to Kill Em", a side-note observation that indicates the warily careful philosophy behind the bored facade: keep your head down, keep rapping....full text |
| Xxlmag |
| Back already? Less than two months after dropping Weekend at Burnies, his Warner Bros. label debut, Curren$y has come through with Verde Terrace, a 14 track mixtape hosted by Gangsta Grillz top dog, DJ Drama. Since the release of Pilot Talk in July of 2010, Jet Life Captain Curren$y has been an absolute workhorse, with this his sixth project of the past 13 months. On Verde Terrace, Spitta tackles a variety of instrumentals, ranging from original production to putting his spin on other artists’ records. In typical Spitta fashion, he elects not to rap over the current “industry” beats, instead opting to ride out on a smorgasbord of records, ranging from Outkast’s “Elevators,” to Max B’s “Why You Do That,” to Jay-Z’s “Stick 2 the Script.” The New Orleans native flexes his adaptability throughout the mixtape, coasting through some high-octane tracks like “Pinifarina” and “Car Talk,” that take him out of his generally sedated element. While the subject matter hasn’t changed much from weed, cars, and aviation, his delivery and cleverness are as sharp as ever. Curren$y isn’t an artist who stands out because of what he talks about, but rather because of how he talks about it. On “Pinafarina,” a remix of Maybach Music Group’s “Pandemonium,” he delivers a wordplay clinic, rapping, “Spitta get lifted like sanctions/Vocabulary gangsta/My ink pen has shanked men.”...full text |
| Eastvillageradio |
| Let’s give it up for Weed Rap. It never gets old, doesn’t offend anyone, has those beats you can ride to for days, and its always circling back to talking about getting high. Wiz Khalifa is clearly the Weed Rap all-star right now, but are you up on Curren$y yet? This guys output is relentless, dropping mixtapes like Weekend at Burnies and Pilot Talk that came so correct Pitchfork got up on his jock and booked him for their festival. While most people are still dusting the shake off Curren$y's last 3 studio albums he dropped in 2011, we now have Verde Terrace. This one is up in smoke something fierce and unbelievably laid back. ...full text |
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