The Tennessee rapper’s latest four-song EP is a concentrated burst of energy with perfectly paced flows and a vibe that's always ready for the dancefloor.
For someone who announced her retirement last August, Brittnee Moore (aka bbymutha, aka BIGMUTHA) has been putting out music at an amazing clip. She returned in October with “idiedtoday,” and she’s since released a string of four EPs, each stronger than the last. CHERRYTAPE, the latest of these, is her hardest hitting, most focused project to date.
Muthaland, Moore’s 2020 full-length debut and farewell to hip-hop (if only for two months), was a universe in itself, but it lacked a gravitational center. In its 62 minutes and 25 tracks—20 songs and 5 skits—there are barely any weak spots and an abundance of standouts: “Dream Sequence,” “11 11,” “Drowning Pool,” and “Pink Poop Emoji” among the best of them. But much like its fun yet forgettable recurring frame—a game show “from the fiery depths of hell”—the record is more a collage of anecdotes than an arcing narrative.
Moore takes the opposite approach on CHERRYTAPE. At four tracks and just over 10 minutes long, it’s as succinct as Muthaland is sprawling. Her flow is perfectly paced, and she delivers every line so confidently in her comfy Tennessee drawl that her self-esteem becomes contagious. Moore’s lyrical prowess was never in question, but she’s particularly sharp here, whether she’s being metaphorical (“He gon’ slit his wrist on my thorns tryna water my rose”), cathartic (“I just wanna go outside and shake it on a rainy day”), or just horny (“He know when I bounce it I buss it/He shakin’, he cummin’, we kissin’ and cussin’”). She’s playfully repetitive on the clubby refrain of “EATCHERRYSODA!!” (“My back hurtin’, my skirt too tight/My booty bouncin’ from the left to the right”), and self-referential on “indian hair (better install),” a remodeled version of one of her earliest cult hits.
Rock Floyd—the Vegas-born, Chattanooga-raised, Atlanta-based DJ and multi-instrumentalist who’s credited on nearly all of Moore’s EPs and who co-executive produced Muthaland—deserves much of the praise for CHERRYTAPE’s futuristic, free-flowing sound. In their years of collaboration, this is the first of Moore’s projects Floyd has handled alone, and his constant presence creates a cohesion absent in her previous work.
Moore has always had a preternatural knack for party music, but this is her first project that’s dancefloor-approved all the way through. The beat on “rainyday:)” sounds like something Drain Gang producer whitearmor might make if he’d split his childhood between Stockholm and the South Side of Chicago. “indian hair (better install)” has a deep funk synth straight from the UK, and “EATCHERRYSODA!!!” takes that sound back to its Midwestern roots, setting it to a footwork drumline that draws on the same raw materials.
Despite the geographically diverse elements of Floyd’s production, it’s automatically, subconsciously apparent that these beats come from the same well. The drum sounds stay constant across tracks, and the arrangements have a tongue-in-cheek quality that makes each instrumental feel like it’s letting you in on a new inside joke. Never is this truer than on CHERRYTAPE’s last and best track, “WRIST.” The beat sets up a satire of Soulja Boy’s production on “Crank That,” which Floyd drives home by adding some well-placed background “yuuuuuuus” to the mix shortly after ZelooperZ, the EP’s only guest performer other than Moore’s young daughter, namechecks Soulja Boy directly in his verse.
bbymutha and ZelooperZ—the Detroit-based Danny Brown protegé who’s stepped out of his mentor’s shadow in the past few years and self-released a strong album of his own last month—had already joined forces over Rock Floyd’s production once on Muthaland and again on Muthalificent 2, both times to great effect. Their sounds are drastically different, but they share a rebellious streak that’s led them both to reject hip-hop’s norms. On “WRIST.”, bbymutha’s even-tempered flow and ZelooperZ’s wild delivery are perfect foils, as are her gritty, realist tales and his madcap, post-modern declarations. Floyd bridges the gap between their seemingly opposite styles, injecting his own personality in a way that both enhances the dissonance and makes it less jarring.
Given how arduous Moore found the making of Muthaland, her recent bite-sized tapes have been perfect outlets for her continued growth and experimentation. CHERRYTAPE is a concentrated burst of energy, evidence of her continued dedication to the craft she almost abandoned less than a year ago.
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