The beat is electric, the video is low rent, and the backstory is hella interesting: this right here is a mixed bag. Heartbreak JC is a rapper from Memphis with some understated charisma and a rock solid flow. His bar game is nothing special but it also doesn’t have to be when he’s so on point.
Memphis was never lyrical miracle territory and they’re probably better for it. Heartbreak JC is the product, more than his actual music. All he has to do is keep it authentic, lean into his million dollar rasp of a voicebox, and make sure the beats bang. So it’s pretty fucking money that he finds himself newly signed to Soul Assassins Records.
That is where things get interesting. DJ Muggs, one of the most prolifically dope producers in hip hop history, has been giving new artists huge co-signs for a long damn time now. Like his fellow LA head (and former protege) Alchemist, most of his output over the past decade has been albums with underground artists he decided to work with because he thought they were dope. Those albums have changed lives.
Bringing an artist into the fold like this is with an actual record deal is, I believe, something altogether new. Soul Assassins, as an imprint, started off in ’97 as a sprawling collective uniting some of the best spitters on both coasts, united by an outsider aesthetic and a love of nuclear-grade marijuana. “Rappers who partied on tour with Cypress Hill” would be an uncharitable way to but it, but it wouldn’t be altogether wrong, either.
That first Soul Assassins joint came out on Columbia, there were many dozens of lawyers involved, bare minimum. Since then it has drifted into a crew, then a brand, then a label of sorts. This is tall tales from the cheap seats, but we never saw Meyhem Lauren or Mach-Hommy signing deals, that long run was built on handshakes between equals and we’ve never heard a word of bad blood since.
So I’m sold on the potential here. I wasn’t too impressed by the bare bones “Lay It Down,” but having checked out some of their other recent singles (especially “Slide”), I am still looking forward whatever album comes out of this. I suspect the combination of styles here is going to cohere into something special.
Betting on DJ Muggs is always smart business. A solid set of Memphis menace over dark cinema like this might just stay in rotation all summer. Taken as a single, though, this beat is so sweet it feels like a fumbled bag to cut something so formulaic. Three Dickies.
