Nemesis & Tree The Johnson & Johnson EP (2011, Mixtape)
The Johnson & Johnson EP (“J&J”) caught my attention because I’ve been intrigued with the Chicago artist, Tree, since David Drake posted his track with GLC, “Texas Tea”, on The Fader, and listening to one of his tapes with Big Wiz, WizardTree, as well as his eponymous EP.
Nemesis is from Miami, FL (Carol City, to be exact), and most of his recorded material seems to be a series of freestyles hosted on DatPiff and a mostly original mixtape that exists only on YouTube. If my shoddy internet research is to be trusted, Tree and Nemesis first hooked up for a track called “RNG” which appeared on Nemesis’ No Seeds No Stems tape (YT link previous).
To be sure, there are some dusty, scratchy samples in Tree’s production on J&J (he is the sole producer on the EP)(he contributes all tracks except “Intro” and “Stupid” - via DD), but there’s also a creeping, unsettling low-end to some of the beats here — in a lot of ways analogous to the blasted out bass tones Tyler, The Creator (and, especially, Syd) were employing in early OF material. Still, J&J is not a musically dark affair. Tree’s production also touches on number of sounds and styles: HHNF-era Neptunes (“Rank Higher”), Boi-1da (“Can’t See Me”) and often, in-the-red-808s trap (“Ridin Round”, “Stupid”, “7 Gramz”).
Raw rap demos to ring in the new year. Works for me.
-SM
(via FSD)
