Frank Kogan

Totally conflicted about "Slide." The FGB Duck original is dead and monotonous, those words understating how oppressively monotonous it sounds, until he unexpectedly starts screaming, and then for several seconds it's absolutely the most exciting musical moment I've had all year. Then back to the monotony, then he pulls the screaming trick again, and later again, and it's exciting every time even with diminishing returns. Mixed review!

Some of the remixes veer towards mesmerizing rather than monotonous, are more basically listenable — it is a powerful track — but none have FGB Duck's shouting excitement, either. On single listens my favorite two so far are Kidd Kenn's and Bangg 3's; I also like Queen Key's and A.K's and Sexy Red's and Fooch's. Do you have any favorites?

In all this I'm eliding* how oppressive the original "Slide" is, not in the sense of "dull" but in the sense of ugly and threatening and I have the sense of being battered listening to it. This though is not necessarily a musical flaw — unless it is, of course, for you and sometimes for me. This is in a lot of music I'm listening to this year. In any event, 6ix9ine's "Billy" is exciting all through — I wonder how you resist it — even if in real life I'd cross the street away from such a scene till things cooled down. Regarding the excitement: more than Wacka Flocka Flame, the obvious sonic references, for me, anyway, if not for 6ix9ine, are Minor Threat and S.O.A. and Black Flag. Not that those three acts are morally questionable in the way 6ix9ine is.**

By the way, your Tumblr writeup ("No Art") on 21 Savage is one of the great posts of the year.

*Frank elides Slide.

**I'm not being coy with the word "questionable." I don't know nearly enough about 6ix9ine to really pass judgment on the human being, and maybe I never would, but "questionable" seems, you know, appropriate given my current state of knowledge — not just of the legal issues but the violent posturing in the music.