Under the alias Kill-F, Static Stamina rapper W “Waka Flocka” “Trill” “Sweet Filly Wine” F ’13 drops five tracks of hip-hop fury packaged as an EP titled Very Good. The EP lets the listener know right off the bat that they’re in for an erratic journey through more hip-hop stylings than eighteen minutes would normally allow. But Very Good doesn’t suffer from genre schizophrenia—it celebrates it, and the listener has no choice but to enjoy the ride. Through name-dropping pop culture gems like Welcome Back, Kotter, Stick Stickly, and Chris Kirkpatrick while maintaining an acute level of self awareness, Kill-F supplies his tracks with eccentric lyrical fodder and hilarious one-liners to repeat for days on end.
The EP opens with “Very Bad,” which sports one of the best layered drum intros this side of Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher.” In a minute and a half, Kill-F spits out words faster than an ace secretary can type and doesn’t skip a beat.
The harsh percussion and stinging bassline of “Very Bad” abruptly slows down into the dreamy and rolling beat of “Don Cheadle,” which sports the best beat on the EP by a mile as well as the best refrain: “What makes dogs sad?/ What makes a dog cry?/ What makes dogs bad?/ Why must dogs die?” After hearing Kill-F theorize on the sanctity of canine life here, there’s no doubt that this was a fun record to record, which makes it an easy EP to get lost in. If there’s one track not to miss, it’s this one. Quick-fire lyricism and a chill beat set against the goofy chorus give the song an interesting flavor and bring the entire EP together quite well.
The next song, “Swell” picks up again with a hard electro-bass pulse and lyrical intensity that ‘”Very Bad” left you longing for. The craziness slows down again this time into the opening track’s reverb-backed, introspective evil twin “Very Good.” After the first few songs of this EP, its still hard to tell whether or not that track is meant to be taken seriously. However, that ambiguity is what fuels this album and keeps you paying close attention.
“E E E E E E E E” rounds out the album and makes sure the listener doesn’t forget that weirdness might be the chief goal here. Still, through all the strange and pseudo-shock lyrics, Kill-F displays a true skill for the craft of rapping. Throwing in the classic drum fill from Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” doesn’t hurt either. The track brings the EP to a close with what can only be described as a reimagining of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by a hyperactive kid from the eighties who watched just a bit too much TV.
Even though it feels a bit too meta to praise this EP after hearing Kill-F proclaim on “Swell,” “I’m not a rap artist, I just rap hardest/they said it in the Argus,” I’ll let self-fulfilling prophecies rule the day: The Argus agrees that Very Good is, indeed, very good (and not just because Chris Kirkpatrick is severely underrated). Download this EP off Kill-F’s Bandcamp and have some fun with it.
