Music You Hear in a Thai Restaurant
An homage to hearing Ginuwine be horny while you're eating curry.
The last drop I did opened up an area of my brain which maybe I’ve been repressing for a long time. Translation: I think writing is just easier and better when I am a dumb, rambling bitch, or at least for this week it does. When discussing writing, both the process of it and the results that come after with other semantics-inclined friends, I often talk about wanting my writing to feel more like when I’m conversing with friends. Not all writing should be like this, to be clear, but if I’m writing about football or rap and then talking about the same football or rap with friends, I feel like those two should be mostly similar.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two writers who helped open up my brain to the possibility and joy of rambling. Friend of the pub Kane Mitten, who you may know from the bird app under the pseudonym of a certain Young Thug deep cut, has been doing some cool work at Cincinnati Magazine like this piece on a guy who swam from Catalina to Long Beach (this is how I learned there is an Open Water Swimming Grand Slam). He’s part of that wave of people I mentioned last week that has recently joined the Substack wave and is also doing a verbal collage of sorts where he talks about what he’s into. You can find his Substack here.
The other person is Israel Daramola, who is probably more well-known for working places like GQ, where he profiled Brent Faiyaz for his new album WASTELAND, and The Ringer, where he wrote about season 3 of Atlanta. He has one of my favorite newsletters of sorts where he has been dropping pieces every now and then but, coincidentally, last week, he also dropped a small collection of words that he quite literally titled “Tweet-Length Reviews.”
In short, subscribe to us, but also, subscribe to other people! And you know what, while you’re here, start writing! Though I often risk coming off as facetious when talking about, well, a lot of things but especially writing, I think if there was ever a time to expand the ways in which we communicate, I think it’s now. Caleb and I were talking about the process of writing a few weeks ago and I was trying to explain the necessity for having a vision when writing and he was adamant that the most important thing is… just the writing. I don’t think I was wrong, but I don’t think he was either.
On the topic of being serious and being a big, smart, cool writer, Pitchfork performed a surprising about-face when they slapped the coveted “best new music” tag (or BNM, if you’re smart and an insider) on CEO Trayle’s new album HH5.
It’s one of the world’s worst kept secrets that their coverage of rap music has been shoddy, at best. For years, their attention span with rap music has only been as long as the album cycles of a select few rappers like the Kendricks and Vince Staples of the world (i.e. the rappers your white friends from high school that you still follow on Instagram listen to). Recognizing rappers like Trayle is a subtle but telling sign that their editorial team is beginning to take seriously rap that is generally considered to be on a lower level — quality-wise, on an intellectual level, whatever — to stuff like the aforementioned rappers. Also, anything Alphonse (Pierre, who did the write up for HH5 and is also P4K’s chief rap handler doing stuff like “The Ones”) writes about is worth paying attention to.
Oh, also, CEO Trayle is sick. I’ll admit that I was kind of lukewarm on him when people first started getting hyped up for him. I figured him as kind of a flash in the pan kind of guy, the type of musician who would blow up for a minute then live off his viral song or get some features on other big rappers’ albums but on HH5, Trayle shows that he has his sound locked down.
HH5 has a very particular coldness to it, like, driving in the winter in your beat-up family car with a broken heater type cold, driving to your opening shift or home from your closing shift and the roads are empty kind of cold. His raspy delivery paints him in the same light as Trouble (RIP) but it feels more… real. Listening to CEO Trayle feels like he’s talking directly to you. When he raps about other people or about his girl problems, it almost feels like I’m intruding on his personal space. “I Love You, But…” is kind of insane but it’s funny and it’s also one of the songs of the year. Listen to CEO Trayle.
Last week, my girlfriend and I went out to dinner twice. One of those nights was a visit to Jon & Vinny’s on Slauson — go there if you’ve never been to a Jon & Vinny’s, it’s better than every other location (also, don’t order the fusilli) — where, upon entering, we were greeted by Rylo loudly rapping, “I bet you we don’t let them n** get off no shots.” (It’s his verse on EST Gee’s “5500 Degrees” if you’ve never heard.)
The Slauson location, being located in one of the predominantly Black areas of Los Angeles, has an affinity for playing more rap than any of the other locations but I was not prepared for an Italian-American restaurant to take me from EST Gee to Eric Bellinger & Problem, but like, not just “I Don’t Want Her,” they were really playing full-on HBK Gang cuts in there. They had me feeling like it was sophomore year of college while I was eating expensive chicken wings and natural wine. Oh, also the wine I got was fantastic; I think it was this white-orange blend from an Italian winery called Le Coste.
Later in the week, after deciding we were too lazy to make dinner on a random night, we decided to try a random Thai restaurant. We settled on a visually unassuming but relatively well-known spot called Luv2eat that’s nestled in one of those random strip malls that populate Sunset Blvd. (I guess I’m becoming a food critic. The crab curry is spicy as hell but fantastic, worth going just for that. Jade noodles were great too.) I’m sure most people have been to mom & pop places that just play random radio stations. To the back of house staff and most customers, it’s probably white noise. To me, it was the funniest, strangest musical cocktail.
I don’t know what radio was playing — I don’t recall hearing any advertisements piped in or a radio host break up the music — but you got your usual Bruno Mars mix, this time it was “24k Magic.” With little to no other rap playing during our time there, I was dumbfounded to hear Big Tymers’ “Still Fly” for the first time in what I’m certain has been years. I’m fairly confident that was the only rap song that played the entire time. At one point, it followed “Birthday Sex” with “Pony.” It was the best music-related experience I’ve had at a restaurant or food place in awhile.
I had never heard of Coco & Clair Clair until about a few weeks ago. I am now a Coco & Clair Clair stan.
Their new album SEXY is some of the most online music to ever exist and it’s partially why it’s so great. The album is littered with sparse, spacey beats that could just as easily be placed on a Drain Gang album or be found along with other loosies on Lil Uzi Vert or Playboi Carti’s Soundcloud. Come for the beats, stay for some of the most ridiculous rapping you’ll ever hear.
On “Bitches,” the duo make rapid-fire switches, “blink and you’ll miss it” fast, between traditional bad bitch raps (“The Prada the Louis, both mine / Your man and his friend, both mine”) and lines that are so out there you can’t help but laugh (“The only bread you pussies get is a yeast infection”). At one point, Coco says a girl is “built like a vape pen” and then drops a Dem Franchise Boyz cadence “Oh I think they like me, always trying to bite me” in the same verse.
The whole album is littered with casual bad bitch one-liners that you should keep bookmarked for your IG captions. The chorus of “Pop 1” has the cadence and feel of the music that plays on a carousel but with verses that start like, “He say he wanna date me / I say that’s not my thing.” Album opener “Cherub” rides out more like a contemporary Atlanta rap song, from its hi-hat heavy beat to its better-than-you rapping (“Pull up to the party, bet your boo wanna leave with me / I’ve got lots of friends and they all wanna die for me”) — it also contains one of the worst (and also, best?) one-liners I’ve heard recently: “Imma Jordin Sparks you / That’s right, no air.”
The easiest way I can put it is Coco & Clair Clair make the saddest hot girl music or the sexiest sad music ever. SEXY is incredibly unassuming, from its cool-toned cover to its simply-named tracklist. The duo’s rapping can come off as not just tongue-in-cheek, but full on absurd, but their willingness to lean into the silliness of it all is what completes it. Are Coco & Clair Clair really bad bitches who get super fucked up and have sex with random strangers every weekend? I don’t know, but their music can definitely make you feel like you do that.
Quick Hits
I think putting the Quick Hits thing under this banner is kind of ugly, but it was bothering me that it wasn’t centered.
I was listening to Goonew recently (RIP) and while listening to Homicide Boyz 2, he raps on the chorus of “Do-Si-Dos” that he’ll “turn a goofy n** into some Do-Si-Dos.” This confused me at first because all I could only think of was Girl Scout cookies until I was informed that Do-Si-Dos are a strain (translation: a pack) — the image of Goonew rapping about Girl Scout cookies is still funny to me though.
I’ve cooled off on Lil Uzi Vert generally speaking but “Just Wanna Rock” is undeniably one of the best things, like, ever. Uzi barely raps on it so it’s definitely just my penchant for Jersey club; at the same time, how could you not like it? It’s also just fun to say “I just wanna rock / Body-ody-ya” to yourself. Go on, rap it a few times. It’s fun as hell.
Goodfight is one of my favorite clothing brands that just happens to be local to Los Angeles. They recently released a small run of pants that are currently living rent-free in my head, namely these denim pants (below) with this sick allover weft that resemble topography. Taking donations for these.
Seriously, don’t get the spicy vodka fusilli from Jon & Vinny’s. It’s not bad, it’s fine, but why waste your time when they have so many other great things? Now, the corn agnolotti — that’s a game changer right there. Every pizza I’ve tried there is also top notch. Don’t forget to try some wine and their soft serve too.
I don’t know who needed to hear this but Samantha is very clearly the best character from Sex and the City.'
