There’s probably some great cosmic force at work that meant I ended up first hearing
100s as I enter the last hundred of my bottomed out overdraft. It helps then that
IVRY, the recently released mixtape from the Fool’s Gold signed rapper, produces the complete opposite of the dread I felt when checking my bank balance. This isn’t scraping the barrel of austerity, this is blown-out and downright decadent hip-hop, and flamboyance is easily evidenced as key.
Though only eight tracks short, IVRY aims high and strikes its target confidently; a mix of tricked out beats, sounding like a bastardised midi-translation of g-funk, pc music and Backstreet Boys pop, alongside the MC’s off-piste, bombastic humour helps to entertain and compel in equal measure. The latter facet emphasised when the Berkley, CA-native spits on Ten Freaky Hoes: ‘The bitch foul, man a nigga ain’t missing her: / I caught her in the shower trying to steal my conditioner’ – are there any other rappers out putting their hair, and their conditioner, before everything else?
Whilst the aforementioned track has a rather straightforward and boisterous narrative title, a gritty reboot of Mambo No. 5 if you will, it’s on mixtape highlights Fuckin Around and Middle of the Night that 100s really lets his ice cold perm shine. Detailing his own grandiose exploits with various sugar mommas on the former, ‘She said 100s but I love yo ass / But that ain’t gon’ get my hair done’, and cooing seductive sweet nothings on the latter, ‘Who is it that you think of in the middle of the night?’, the MC effectively showcases all of his strengths on the succinct tape;
IVRY‘s powerfully sharp buzz is that pure, platinum card-cut cocaine rap in contrast to Chance’s long-weaving
Acid variety.
Words: Nathan Roberts
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