In an industry that runs on bullshit, there’s no greater sin than being boring. Lying, cheating, stealing; all par for the course, but nothing can save you if the product is undercooked. He had a wild ride, but in the end, Memphis Bleek couldn’t escape the microwave dinner limitations of his own bar game.
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, though! It’s one of the only things keeping the music festival industry solvent lately, too, so perhaps the time is right for Bleek to finally make his big comeback. Fall off long enough and eventually the fashion cycle catches back up with you.
Today’s offering is a familiar formula: in 2005, “3 Kings” was a Slim Thug single that featured Bun B and T.I. In 2012, “3 Kings” was a Rick Ross single that had Jay-Z and Dr. Dre flossing over a bonkers Jake One beat. Then five years later, outspoken Palestinian activist DJ Khaled had to weigh in, drafting Yo Gotta and Fabolous for a song that was every bit as baffling as you think. Now it is 2025 and Memphis Bleek is shooting his shot.
Malik Cox’s primary claim to fame, of course, is being a playable character on the classic video game Def Jam: Fight for NY. His place on that start menu is not quite as improbable as Bubba Sparxxx, Lil’ Flip or Henry fucking Rollins making the cut, but it was a high water mark just the same. A year later, Bleek would drop 534, his final major label project and an album that’s mostly remembered for “Dear Summer,” a Jay-Z guest feature so hot they didn’t even let his protege cut some adlibs, let alone a verse. 20 years later and that’s still one of the weirder flexes in NYC rap history.
Bleek’s legacy left him in a hard place since then: Jay-Z’s hypeman, Def Jam also-ran, Casanova’s manager, Making Easy Money Pimping Hoes In Style and none of it aged well. For a certain flavor of a certain era of NYC head, he will forever be a legend, but to anyone anywhere else, all that hard work is barely a footnote today. Life is like that: cruel, capricious. Cruelest of all is the fact that he was playing the game on hard mode back when moving 500,000 units really meant something. Now he’s fighting to re-assert his relevance for a generation that only goes “platinum” on the unwatched screens of massive warehouse click farms.
Smoke DZA and Benny The Butcher are cut from a very different cloth from all that post-Spotify noise. These are two East Coast rap purists, living throwbacks who also happen to make a living selling actual products to actual fans. Both of them built their brands and businesses on the fringes of the major label establishment, ignored until they were undeniable. These are exactly the kind of co-signs a returning legend needs.
The video is urgent & simple, everything it needs to be. Those Marcy hallways might look a lot different now but that history is still there. All that matters is Memphis Bleek comes off like he belongs here. After all, his verses were only boring because they were so perfect, not a single airbrushed detail out of place, the living archetype of East Coast dope boy excellence.
Putting that up against Benny The Butcher, well…the results are predictable. Even when Benny is on autopilot, his schemes are top tier, and he casually ethers Bleek’s ’05 Roc complacence with the full force of ’25 Griselda hunger. Smoke DZA ups the ante even further for the closer.
So: mission accomplished, but barely. Nobody is going to start speculating about a Bleek x Daringer LP after this. Old dogs don’t have to learn new tricks: recent work from AZ and Lloyd Banks proves that much. But for an artist who wasn’t a standout talent in any era, Memphis Bleek today is more respectable senior citizen than retired martial arts master. He paid his dues, he put up big numbers, and he deserves to be proud of that legacy. But he also sounds every bit as old as he is. Three Dickies.
