OG Cuicide has done a lot since his 2011 breakthrough single “Never Give Up” first hit record store shelves. He’s recorded numerous singles, dropped a couple of albums and appeared on quite a few collaborative projects, and in his latest release “Keep it G,” he brings his wealth of experience to the writer’s room and produces what could be his most connective work so far. Joined by AD, OG Cuicide shows literally no signs of selling out in “Keep it G;” the musicality is raw and angsty while the lyrics feel personal and don’t exploit repetitive themes simply to sound catchy to the average listener.
We’re never put in the position of feeling like the players are dumbing down the narrative to us, nor do they ever recycle elements of each other’s’ personalities, much as the case has been with a lot of the other indie rap collaborations I’ve listened to lately. They’re both going harder than ever in this track, and despite facing a lot of pressure to live up to an increasingly satisfying mainstream sound in modern rap and trap music, these guys offer one of the leanest and meanest hip-hop singles you’re going to hear before the year is out.
Try as you might, you won’t find any catharsis buried in the lyrics, melodies or the beats that cushion them in “Keep it G” – in all honesty, you’re going to find its antithesis in bountiful tension, most of which is used as a catalyst for OG Cuicide’s storytelling. Both he and AD reject the Quality Control-approved rattle in their execution, preferring something a bit more akin to the old school in hip-hop, and while it’s coupled with a little more bass than we actually needed in this instance, the cosmetics aren’t necessarily the main focus here (in my view, at least). These rappers seem intent on demonstrating linguistic fluidity more than musical showmanship – a rarity among their peer group – but I think a lot of that comes from wanting to take this studio version and bring it to life in a live setting sometime. This feels like it was written for the stage, and I don’t think you need to be a critic to hear that.
If you haven’t already been following the works of OG Cuicide and AD in the last year, now is definitely a good time to find out about their music through the alluring sounds of “Keep it G” and the complete tracklist of OGs Are Forever. This is the most competitive I’ve seen rap since coming into the music industry over a decade and a half ago, and if there’s anything we can directly take away from this all-new release from OG Cuicide, it’s that he isn’t about to back down from the challenge at hand for a second. He wants to get into the mainstream spotlight, and having paid his dues in the underground for almost ten years now, this track celebrates his tenacity and where he wants to be in this emerging decade.
Jodi Marxbury