When the Beat ️‍🔥 But Nettspend Starts Rapping: The Trial of the BAFK

Genre: Jerk // Post-Rage // Cloud Rap // Fanboy & Chum-Chum Rap

Opening Remarks by Ike Nabuife:

How can you be the rapper of the year without dropping an album? You may think I’m talking about the good kid from the m.a.a.d. city, but I’m actually referring to the bad ass f*cking kid.

Complex named Nettspend one of “Best Teenage Rappers Right Now” before he even dropped a debut project. 10 years ago, “Best Teenage Rapper” conjured names like Joey Bada$$, Capital Steez, and Chief Keef. But in 2024, online audiences have made it clear there is nothing they love more than white boys: ian, Yeat, 2hollis, and the titular Nettspend. When I hear claims that he represents  the Gen Alpha equivalent to Chief Keef and Bladee, it makes my head spin. Are “shine n peace” and “we not like you” really as ahead of their time as “Ginseng Strip 2002” and “Hotel Breakfast” were a decade ago? Probably not, but the possibility makes me nauseous. That being said, I still want to consider being more open-minded – because right now the Nett hype feels like an inside joke that went over my head.

Nett resembles Bieber if Bieber hailed from a generation of rappers who don’t want to write their lyrics because Wayne and Jay-Z don’t. It’s cooler than ever to not care or try. This might just be what it looks like for victims of the literacy crisis to dodge the school-to-prison pipeline in 2024. His approach to rap music and integration into the jerk trend gives me the same energy as Sanjay & Craig’s childishly crude approach to humor. For 2024, “nothing like uuu” resembles the underground’s anthemic equivalent to the repetitive “Baby” — just modeled after the impressionist babblings of Playboi Carti rather than Usher’s soulful serenades.

A gaping power vacuum opened in the underground with the disappearance (retirement by TikTok-attention span standards) of Izaya Tiji, an abyss that Nett, a fellow zombie whose career and creative development so far feels like an unethical social experiment to see how to engineer the most profitable rapper for the Soundcloud market, seeks to fill. Lines like “I feel like Future but Gen Z” encapsulate his career as the inevitable result of music being marketed to white teens who “want to be black and think the song is how it feels.” But time after time, that demographic eventually decides they prefer artists who look like them.

Charges:

Jerkin Bieber’s story saddens me for a variety of reasons: his parents have turned a blind eye to his opiate habit to the point where he nods off at concerts that look more like listening parties than performances. (I don’t know how I feel about people chanting “B*TCH IM RICH” to a babbling, inebriated toddler.) Not to mention his purported relationship with a 23 year-old model. The glass half-full perspective is that he’s a rebellious adolescent making music true to himself, and the internet has allowed his art to find its audience and transform his life… for better or for worse. It all feels like a recipe for a tragic documentary and untimely admission to the 27 Club — an idea reiterated by the album cover that invokes Biggie’s Ready to Die and 27 Club Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

The Virgin Music star rises to the stand again after the industry tried to put him in timeout, snagging tracks “nothing like uuu” and “that one song” — his two most listenable offerings — off DSPs likely due to uncleared samples. Now, he’s dropped the most polarizing project of the year to finish off 2024.

Track-by-Track Arguments by Ike Nabuife (DJ Indigo):

• The staccato flows and simple, moody bars on “Growing Up” paint a tragic picture of his environment and what he feeds his brain. He chronicles his melodramatic mission to fry all his dopamine receptors before he can legally drink as he details his vapid escapism through drugs and chasing ‘slut trucks’ like a chair-humping mutt with no leash.
• “Project Pat” catches you off guard after luring you in with the lush strings before sucker punching you with his nasally inflections and saturated bass. He cannot even come up with enough lines to fill up open verses at times.
• “Leader” is a standout track with skittering, oscillating production from Kenny Beats and ok but his continuously harsh vocals disrupt the experience.
• Likewise, Nettspend’s daring vault toward a more passionate performance on “Tommy” is scary and off-putting like a schizophrenic chihuahua. This barely resembles music.
• While “Tyla”’s glittery synths invoke “NOSTYLIST”, I’m not excited to hear this on virgin-bait fashion edits on TikTok for the next year.
• “Asap” trembles on the precipice of something with its jittery, rising hook but comes off more like an ankle-bitter nagging you for the iPad than anything satisfying.
• “F*CK Cancer” marks the first time the kid actually raps and doesn’t just grumble as if rapping/performing is a chore he’s been procrastinating, but the refrain to this track is literally him whining “wah wah wah”. “Cancer” feels like a love letter to astrology girls and an ode to fellow children who have never been to the gym because they are embracing the lean gut. NoBells said on Twitter this sounds like Black Kray, and, yeah, the track rings like “Spaz Wit Them Bands” if it was bad. Best track by far.
• Despite her catastrophic DJ set this year, my Grimes nostalgia cancels out my qualms with the truancy anthem “Skipping Class” enough to submit to the song’s blithe fun.
• “Beach leak” distinguishes itself as a summery jersey club/pop standout and the only track I see myself coming back to. I’m a fiend for evilgiane’s heady production, and this has some of his most inventive with midi timpanis instead of generic 808s. His song “40” with xav is basically “The Hillbillies” for people who are afraid to talk to women. The fact that “Beach leak” still sounds like it’s a leaked recording of a phone speaker gives it some charm once you get past the fact he’s rapping about opiates again.
• “Shut Up” and “Bird Box” try to imitate ragers and eventually give up. “Shut Up” inundates the listener with energizing tinny drums and epileptic flashing sirens like a birthday party with hot shrapnel instead of confetti poppers, with whatever remaining potential dashed by the nauseating vocals. “Bird Box” is noise.
• Nothing stands out to me on “Drop the Blunt” except its flustering immaturity as he proudly screams “where the hoes?”
• “Perc Soda” manages to somehow be better as Nett crowns himself “baddest kid of the year”, but it sounds like a child trying to preserve his morning voice to impress his crush. When I try to vibe to this song, I think I can feel my brain rotting faster than an avocado.
• BAFK ends with the closest Nett can get to an earnest love song with “Say Please” where he appreciates how his lover will “try on new outfits in front of [him]” and interrogates them on whether “if they made love, would it change your outlook on [him]”. For a market not used to listening to sensationally diverse music and with the emotional capacity of a canine, the track might hit like a truck. For others, maybe a trainwreck.

Defense by Isaac David (DJ ISD // Grown Man With A Beard Who Went to the NYC Nettspend Show):

I believe Mr. Nettspend shouldn’t be punished for thinking outside the box and his unique performance style. I also think the prosecution is wrong and shouldn’t be able to judge Nettspend if he listened to the generic “Not Like Us” more than 50 times this year. This tape should be taken seriously. His team executed the rollout for this tape at a level perfect for the type of artist he is and his level of stardom. If the rumors of an HBO special are true, then it only cements his icon status. Also, the idea of not putting any old singles on the tape was a smart play so that everyone will enjoy fresh music. Plus, he can boast growing his base and album numbers off brand new music alone.

Track-By-Track Defense:

• “Growing Up” dumps you into the mixtape’s taste-breaking five-star sound — credit to Rokonthetrack, Carter Bryson, 3rdup, & Nick Souza. “Growing Up” sounds like a movie intro where the sun rises at the start of the BAFK’s day. The heartfelt chords remind me of A.G. Cook’s production on tracks like “So I”. Nettspend introduces listeners to his signature cadence and bars about slut trucks and pouring up.
• The follow-up “Leader” initially took third place, but I’m glad they shuffled “Pat” ahead due to how it flows from the smooth opener. “Project Pat” starts with heavenly strings from OK before an amazing drop that explodes into a homage track to both Osamason’s “The World is Free” & lean plug from Chicago “Project Pat.”
• I’m grateful for the unique rager “Tommy” and its special cadence and Rok’s standard production overflowing with hard 808’s and crazy melodies.
• “Tyla” is the thesis of the album, basically. A fire OK beat + random excerpts of talking about the VA = a hit.
• The underrated track “A$AP”  kicks off a beautiful 4-5 track run with real bars like “I got banned from the bank // I keep on pullin’ too many funds” and “Lookin’ at me like a deer ‘cause you know I took your doe-”. Honestly, Nett was definitely in his bag for coming up with these heavy punchlines to match yet another crazy, high tempo OK beat.
• “F*CK Cancer” comes in a easy pick for the album’s standout track. Shoutout to reklus1ve for being an OG prod on the album which IMO explains why this track stands above so many others. Nett literally whines for the pre-chorus, but I swear it goes hard.
• “Skipping Class” marks another home run in the album’s fire back-to-back. The most hype part comes as Nett actually gets the Grimes sample cleared and not taken down like his other hits.
• “Beach leak”. I think all charges should be dropped just because this song actually dropped. The mix and mastering engineers did a great job filling the toms up with bass to hit hard and be neither obnoxious nor weak. My people that are tapped in heard this one a few months before even “F*CK SWAG” or heard me backdooring it into DJ sets at the AROUSE Welcome Back Show and at venues/bars across Columbus. Nett perfectly complements the beat’s beautiful drums by evilgiane and melody by Bhristo and Bobby Raps with his cadence and minimal lyrics shouting out Surf Gang & Future.
• The album’s poster song “Shut Up” hits like a ton of angry bricks. I disagree with the prosecution’s claims of a lacking performance and cite its streaming success and undeniable hardness.
• Every album has to have a sleeper at the end of a crazy run. so “Birdbox” stumbles in as a freebie. I don’t find it a bad song, but I don’t come back to it very often. Likewise with “Drop The Blunt”, but not due to any lacking performance but rather just because it didn’t hit as hard. Especially with the reklus1ve production, the song reminds me Nettspend’s early SoundCloud drops.
• “Perc Soda” establishes itself as another favorite with its hardass OK beat and earworm chorus: “🎶Percs in my soda, I’m throwed, I got flown out🎶”
• Bro didn’t even acknowledge “LAUGHIN”, but ngl this song is also overstimulating so I can’t help it.
• Being an ode to his shawty about her trying on clothes in front of him and making love over another crazy beat produced by first-time collaborator methboiswag, “Say Please” is a great outro song and underrated track with real lyrical bars like “I’m finna remodel the whole crib, became an architect in my sleep”. Right after that, he rhymes “And I can’t talk to your b*tch, it smells like artichoke when she speak”. How is this not true poetry?

The only thing Nett should be charged with in this case is being a BAD ASS F*CKING KID (and also doing opiates and weed at 17 years old).

Conclusion by Ike Nabuife:

BAFK is a saccharine take on the dissonance of craving the agency of adulthood but savoring the freedom of adolescence. The good ideas on BAFK feel like afterthoughts or as if they were put there completely by accident. Shadows of interesting performances dance across the tracklist, but it seems Nett was desperate to capture the dynamic whimsy of the one-take style. That raw spontaneity in his studio performances that inspires and attracts some fans will disappoint others.

Nettspend abandons a lot of the underground producers here for a predominant collab tape with ok. ok is the album’s MVP — the Soundcloud equivalent to A.G. Cook. The average Nettspend listening experience feels like having a euphoric night out with your closest friends (ok’s production) only to get run up on by someone you ghosted (Nettspend’s performance). Nettspend’s initial come-up singles like “We not like you” with its unearthly harpsichord, the unruly “2024 freestyle,” or brain-breaking “drankdrankdrank” were more provocative and disorienting. This project really sticks to the underground paradigm of giving the most ethereal, godsend beats to the most amateurish writers and then calling them wunderkinds.

Despite my harsh words, I will always appreciate the will to make uniquely bad music like Nettspend’s over the gall to make lukewarm, mid/boring music like Gracie Abrams or something any day. It’s largely why I think numerical ratings never do music justice. In cases like this, I feel like there should be a horseshoe rating system. People will see its controversial reception and immediately recall Carti’s Whole Lotta Red or Ye’s Yeezus, but this is closer to Cudi’s Speedin Bullet 2 Heaven or Tyler, the Creator’s Cherry Bomb. However, I will say I personally harbor poor feelings for the future of trap if Nettspend (a white high school dropout from Virginia rapping about slut trucks and copying his faves from SoundCloud) is Future (a prolific ATL native who sprouted from the heart of hip hop culture alongside legends like Andre 3000 in the Dungeon Family sharing almost Shakespearean tracks about his vulnerable attempts to outrun the ineffable pain that comes with loving someone)… but Gen Z. One day, Gunnar (Nettspend) will drop his own equivalent to “Agony” or “Throw Away”, and then I’ll eat my words, but for now, overall, I’m not too impressed.

Drafted Proposal for a Horseshoe Rating System for Art/Media where the bottom of the horseshoe is mid/derivative, the left is ambitious but controversial/poorly executed and the right is conventionally bar-raising and innovative.

BAD ASS F*CKING KID is a stepping stone — junior’s first resume in a way — rather than a seminal moment. He already had a cult following with no album out, and it will likely only get stronger from here. Whether it’s saving or enabling him is still unclear. From the Grimes sample to the nebulous free associative lyrics, this would’ve been considered a Gen Z parody if it came out last decade. Regardless, Nett clearly gives a (incoherent yet relatable) voice to a lot of developing iPad kids online, and it sounds like what they’re trying to say is: we gon be ok.

Chronically Online Verdict:

DJ Digo: 3.5/10

DJ ISD: Real Music