You may not agree with me that Bruiser Wolf is one of the best new rappers of the past decade, but you have to concede he’s one of the funniest. His run since his (perfect) debut Dope Game Stupid has been a continuously escalating catalog of heaters. He can turn any beat into an anthem, it’s uncanny. His 2024 followup My Story Got Stories proved he could do it again; since then he’s been proving he can do a whole lot more.
That 2026 would see him connecting with Sheefy McFly is a beautiful thing. They’re both Detroit legends who excelled by paving their own idiosyncratic lanes – Sheefy’s output being dubbed “Andy Warhol sensibility with hood intonations” remains my favorite pull quote. It is a fair comparison, too. He is a master of style and process, churning out art with a Picasso-like consistency, working in waves of iteration.
So it makes sense his beats also slap. “HATER NOT AN OPP” is iced-out perfection, just a couple layers of drums and bass but it’s all cranked into the red & funky as fuck. This beat is a clinic is careful syncopation, not to mention humanizing drum machines into something … more.
Their collab LP Paint & Push channels that same primal pulse, clearly & indefinably Bay Area, Chicago, NYC and extremely Detroit all at once. So it squares that Mr. McFly not only spins ghettotech (as Edward Elektro) but routinely graces his murals with the reminder that “Techno House is Black Music.” He’s not making an homage to the past, he is directly interacting with the source itself.
There is always a great deal going on when Bruiser Wolf is in the booth, but the entire enterprise can be boiled down to this: proving that he could have been an all-time great in 1986, too. It sounds like he’s competing with Ice-T and Schoolly D here.
It also sounds like he’s winning. Big Wolf has punchlines for years, but so many critics miss the pain behind that, even after five consecutive albums of top shelf blues songs. Just because someone can make you laugh doesn’t mean it’s all jokes, but that’s a lesson that can only be taught by experience.
Payroll Giovanni is always representing right. He’s got a razor sharp mind and a swiss watch flow, but he’s never flashy with either. It’s a perfect stylistic counterpoint: they both build brilliant jigsaw puzzles with very different approaches, and I hope to see an entire album from this duo by next year. (As long as we’re taking requests from the cheap seats: Bruiser Brigade tape over all McFly beats. Thank you.)
“In the hold of such events, there is little to be said.” This is wall to wall god tier bars and I will be bumping this for the entire summer. Five Dickies.
