Alley Boy “Low Down” (2011) (prod. by ZMD, dir. by Nokey Films)
Alley Boy stays in his lane. I think that’s why I can engage with, and keep returning to, his music, despite the subject matter being pretty narrow. He also is one of the most (seemingly) earnest rappers working the “trap” circuit currently, whether that means showing his internal strife and suicidal thoughts on last year’s “Alone,” or penning an entire ‘tape about his moral conflict over the life he leads (lead?), and where he thinks that life is going to take him when he’s gone.
“I speak the shit I really live,” is the first line of his first verse on “Low Down,” but more than that, it’s a mantra for his (relative) success. Unlike the dime-a-dozen trappers filling up most of the pages on non-NYC hip hop aggregators, Alley Boy doesn’t try to cover up the fact that he is a real person and not some comical crossbreed of Tony Montana, Leatherface and Frank Lucas. You know, the humanity behind the killer and drug dealer.
And, yeah, sure, some of the imagery in this video (i.e., the faux-torture shit) echoes those characters I just mentioned, but at it’s heart, this song is about authenticity:
Behind the glory, rappers got cracks in they story
*cues Maybach Music drop*
-SM
(via DGB)
