Your Old Droog, Space Bar
Don’t get me started on Europe, been a legend there/ Got my own statues like Lenin Square
One June night in 2017, after a long day of skating the Jungle DIY, I found myself at a Wiki show in Williamsburg. The three-dollar entry fee and the prowess Wiki had displayed on “3 Stories” were attractive on their own, but the third factor, the deal-sealer, was that Your Old Droog was co-headlining. I’d heard about the Ukrainian lyricist from Brooklyn, the rapper once suspected of being an anonymous Nas side project, and I was curious to see him live.
The duo traded off songs and verses for close to an hour before taking a quick break, Droog standing at the front of the stage with a cigarette and a pocket notebook. “This dude is always writing,” Wiki said. And it does seem like he’s one of those rappers who always has a beat playing in his head. (My favorite Droog bar remains, “Recording voice memos on the balcony/ Can’t let that fire escape.”) Four years later, he does not appear to have slowed down at all. Space Bar is his fourth album of 2021.
Droog has grown steadily since the days of Nas comparisons, each album revealing a breakthrough in form, a new flow, a novel concept, or an unexplored facet of the rapper’s identity — no small feat for an artist who takes most of his style cues from the 1990s. The last three years have been especially productive, and Droog has embraced the identity he once kept hidden. He released Jewelry in 2019, drawing inspiration from his Ashkenazi background and delighting Jewish rap fans worldwide. In 2020 he dropped Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition, an album replete with vintage Russian radio samples and even a verse in Droog’s mother tongue.
Space Bar’s concept is less personal: a bar in space. Six of the tracks are named after drinks, one is called “Cosmonaut,” one is named after Yuri Gagarin, and there’s one freaky outer space interlude. I was excited about “White Russian” because I’ve been learning more about my own Jewish Belarusian heritage, but, alas, the song is about Droog’s slavic seed.
I’m in your daughter’s bed, listening to Portishead
(The YOD Father Michail Corleone redeems himself two songs later, rapping, “Got my young shooter named Anatoly/ Told him leave the gun, take the pierogi.”)
While Space Bar may not represent an advance in Droog’s understanding of himself, it is certainly a space for bars. Droog has been adamant about the value of thoughtful, clever writing since his earliest releases, and one of his favorite subjects is the degradation of professionalism in contemporary music. “A lot of people only buy art because it costs a lot,” he raps on track one, and he goes on to pepper the album with observations about the decline of the craft and an industry indifferent to artistry.
It reminds me of the nostalgic “Please Listen To My Jew Tape,” a 2020 single that ended up on TIME. Droog recounts Sha Money XL’s reaction to an early demo, rapping, “He said, ‘Dope voice, dope flow, but something about it sounds dated’/ Safe to say I was downgraded.” Later in the song, Droog wonders what could have happened if he had appealed to a wider audience, signed to a major label, and achieved mainstream success.
But by staying independent Droog has been able to maintain his orthodox vision of hip-hop. He’s outspoken about his work ethic (it’s the central theme of Tha Wolf on Wall St., one of two 2021 collab albums with Tha God Fahim), and through his consistent and rigorous output has amassed a small cult following. Early comparisons to Action Bronson, another New York rapper with an Eastern European background, don’t hold up at all — Droog now occupies a lane closer to his frequent collaborator Mach-Hommy.
At times, his allegiance to a ‘90s style extends beyond cadence, and certain moments on Space Bar might raise forward-thinking eyebrows. The sample at the end of “Bloody Mary,” for instance, or diss lines like, “What’s that in ya mouth? I see sack.” Less typical of the Golden Age is Droog’s fixation on much older women, and this project includes yet more threats to romance the grandmothers of those who plot against him. (If I were ever to interview the guy, this would be the first thing I’d ask about.)
All in all, Space Bar gives YOD fans exactly what they’re looking for: slick, New York neoclassical rhymes, a deep selection of jokes and cultural references, and wildly eclectic beats. Of his four 2021 albums, it has the most interesting concept and the best execution. It’s also the most listenable. On the last track, “Dom Perignon,” Droog celebrates his success thus far, rapping about meals with “more courses than grad students” over soft keys and horns. It’s a feel-good track reminiscent of Doo Rags, but instead of pining for the past, Droog is taking stock of all he’s learned and looking toward the future. And the future is bright.
John Shanahan, “RECKLESS OPERATIONS OF SKATES”
Your Old Droog isn’t the only prolific white artist in New York to be inspired by ‘90s hip-hop aesthetics. The latest edit from Pangea Jeans, released in tandem with the nascent label’s winter collection, showcases spots and pants that could easily have been plucked out of 1998.
Leading the charge, of course, is John Shanahan. He was one of the first to make the mid/late-2010s jump from straight leg Dickies to baggy jeans, and now he’s capitalizing on the revivalist wave he helped start. Having experimented with tech, dust bag-adorned Frankenstein pants as One Off John, Shanahan has now refined his aesthetic vision, delivering a more palatable nostalgia via his Pangea project.
The first line of the Sean Price song in “RECKLESS OPERATIONS OF SKATES” is, “Who rap like rap is supposed to sound?” The verse is classic Sean P: grimy, aggressive, undeniably sturdy. It’s a perfect pairing with Shanahan’s skating, which, to a certain kind of skater, looks like skating is supposed to look. The song came out in 2017, two years after Price’s death, and around the same time kids started ditching their highwaters and Chucks for cargos and DC’s. In rap and skating, it seemed, there was a fresh appetite for tradition.
Some people say Shanahan’s kits are too much, that the gear Kevin Bilyeu and Jahmir Brown wear looks more natural. But I think it works. The aesthetic — of the clothes, the classic ledge tricks, the decades-old spots, and in this case the video quality — is just so cohesive. And if any viewer were to start wondering what he keeps in all those cargo pockets, anyway, or whether billowing fabrics ever obscure his view of his board, Shanahan would promptly draw them back in with a huge nollie shove.
Indeed, it’s Shanahan’s skill on a skateboard that ties this whole operation together. His trick selection, a subtle update on ledge staples, includes heelflips out of switch noseslides and front blunts shifted into long, balanced fakie 5-0s. Every grind is held, every flip trick barrel-high. And when, in the final minute, he fakie manuals a misty Flushing hubba, it’s as if he’s rolling down into the last century, off to film a part in Zoo York Mixtape. The only hint he was out of place there would be his lack of tic-tacs.