Track Attack: Lil Pump—’Back (feat. Lil Yachty)
Posted: by The Editor
Source: HotNewHipHop
It always fascinates me when an artist is unequivocally irredeemable on paper, but inexplicably enjoyable in practice. Lil Pump, the Florida Soundcloud-gone-Spotify rapper, is one of those artists. There’s no reason why his unabashedly idiotic brand of bubble-trap should be reacted to with anything other than an “smh”, but honestly, his self-titled debut project is so shamelessly asinine that negative critique feels pointless—foolish, even. In 15 songs across 36 minutes, Pump tirelessly ejaculates mindless trap tropes (cars, women, drugs, more cars) over some of the chubbiest, energized, fist-pump-inducing beats in recent memory. It’s a duality that artists like Wacka Flocka and 2 Chainz (who makes a fitting appearance on here) have been employing for over half-a-decade, and one of the project’s standout tracks, “Back”, which features the current figurehead of this new generation of goofy-ass party music, Lil Yachty, is a solid indication that Pump might have the chops to join their ranks.
The track boasts the aggressively repetitive hook, “All I do is count racks, ooh/told that bitch, throw that shit back, ooh,” and Pump’s verse references an implausible 100k bank withdrawal, three different cars, diamonds and the obligatory AR. It’s a ludicrous basket of flaunts from the 17-year-old, but he absolutely owns it, delivering each line with the inertia of a packed-out club—essentially what the track, and this album as a whole, was designed for. The ever-polarizing Yachty drops one of his better verses on here, too, holding off on the auto-tune and his slurred, childish inflection; instead opting for a comparably hype yet charmingly sloppy delivery to that of Pump’s.
Although Lil Pump’s verses on both this track and this project are equally preposterous to those of a slightly more established artist like Lil Uzi Vert, it’s his sheer energy and generally palatable voice that makes him so hilariously likeable. (Uzi’s lazy flow and irritating squawk get old quick.) Regardless of whether he can carry this shtick over to another project, Lil Pump is one of the year’s most unfathomably enjoyable hip-hop releases, and “Back” is an intoxicating gateway for those who’ve yet to take their first lil bump.
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Eli Enis | @eli_enis
