The Tampa-based rapper shares his Lex Luger produced debut project
Picture this: the year is 2012 and you are sitting at your computer browsing DatPiff looking for new rap releases. Earl is newly free’d, the jury is still out on whether Tumblr is cool or not, and you have no idea what “Sad Boys” means. It’s a simpler time, surely. You see that Lil B has dropped a new mixtape (no surprise there) called Green Flame, so you download it and queue up the first song: “Bitch Mob (Intro).” You’re greeted with the familiar sound of the Based God greeting you (“aye bruh…check this out, bitch”) and introducing his new tape with promises of gudda thuggin’ shit. You feel relaxed, you feel at home.
Fast forward to 2019. Things are different now: rappers carefully craft aesthetics on Instagram, hoping to rise above the froth of self-promoters in the comment section. The Internet changes at lightspeed, as so too does music. For me, this can start to feel unsettling, with songs like “Gucci Gang” being uncannily and nauseatingly nostalgic nods to styles that should still feel young, yet have been lost in the flow of binary.
This is all to say that when I started listening to Big Baby Scumbag’s new project, Juvenile Hell, I immediately felt at ease, thanks in no small part to Lil B. It opens with an intro track that begins with B giving shout outs to Scumbag and Lex Luger, the producer of the tape, before quickly launching into a beat that would fit perfectly on any obscure DatPiff project from the early 2010s. Between shouted flows, Scumbag lets us know where we are: “Juvenile Hell, it’s the intro!” When was the last time you heard a rapper let us know it’s the intro?
Of course, there is much more to this release than throwback beats and nods to bygone styles. Big Baby Scumbag has made a name for himself throughout the underground via fun flows and undeniable charisma, both of which are in full display here. While the hooks on each song are certainly fun, each one is made that much more fun by how much energy Scumbag puts into each one. “Trinity” finds him screaming until his voice cracks in an impressively entertaining fashion; “RIP PRODIGY” has verses that are just as catchy and hard as the chorus.
The project also features two of Scumbag’s earlier Luger-produced singles with “PIN HEAD” and “METAL GEAR SOLID,” both of which are good fun. The titles of these two tracks point towards Scumbag’s propensity to incorporate pop culture into his songs. In “PIN HEAD,” he delights in jumping across different spheres of references: apart from the obvious Hellraiser-referencing title, the song alludes to aliens, Charles Darwin, Batman, dragons, witches and Bladee in less than two minutes.
So no, Juvenile Hell is not just for those who yearn for a lost era of Internet rap, but for those who like fun music in general. In a way, though, the project feels detached from current music trends, making it a breath of fresh air.