Album Review: SOON MY DOUBLES WILL PULL OFF ALL OF MY STUNTS by andrew
The Philadelphia-raised, UK-based rapper-producer made this album for his late father and released it on his birthday. He raps about lifting burgers, quitting drinking, and resting when tired.
Saturdays meant going to flea markets in andrew’s Philadelphia family house, as his father, a die-hard Beatles fan who collected all their memorabilia, insisted on going there, giving his son a bunch of duplicate tapes for starting his collection. Now, he has become a rap artist and producer and part of Sleepingdogs with Jesse the Tree from Providence, releasing his records through U Don’t Deserve This Beautiful Art of Darko the Super from his home in the UK. His father, Carm, has passed away. andrew produced each song for SOON MY DOUBLES WILL PULL OFF ALL OF MY STUNTS using only his own work, mainly soul samples, and released it on Carm’s birthday, dedicating it to his father, who was always playing something—records at home, tapes in the car.
This “hand-me-down” mentality is also present in the song “SOON.” He keeps his dial set back, playing movies from the nineties and music from the sixties; he is raised on Kenny Lofton and Ken Griffey; everything should be done with attention; every day he lives is a new game of Go Fish where he picks the bread mold instead of throwing the loaf away; even his cockiness has a funeral in it—“Pourin’ out some liquor, the old me out the picture.” He weighs his days in “WILL”: “Some days I lift some weights, and then some days I lift a burger.” Then he becomes a humble server who looks for a life preserver, zagging when they say zagging, using chewing gum and rubber bands to jerry-rig everything, and betting on himself.
As the quote of Leo Tolstoy stated over “DOUBLES,” every man has the germs of every human quality, and for andrew this diagnosis was personal. andrew lived his life because he hated his people, who are no longer there. He tried to live his life to let his people decide on his life, and at the same time, he admitted that all his plans failed. In “PULL,” the problem with his brain went into a vice grip, and he understood that it was because of the way his life went. Despite himself, andrew starts to rewrite some songs, remembering the period when he was drunk and a fat glutton. He states that death helped him to change. However, he admits that he quit, but still he ain’t shit, always loose leaf. For blackchai, this situation meant that survivors will have to be distinguished from victims and that people can change from one second to another. He honors the host of the inside of “Drew power out the silence.”
The second half of sleepingdogs, Jesse the Tree, claims he is sure on “MY” that every bar is about to die and float clumsily down the river, mourning about his life and the fact that since Reagan’s win everything has been only downhill. He finds comfort in the self-portrait he made, depicting himself as both ugly and charming, repulsive and beautiful. Then comes Darko the Super from somewhere even more unstable. He claims that Tupac is alive in there, Sex Packets are in his player, and he even signs the autograph for a crack whore, all of this governed by one rule: “Sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from crying/Running from your past to keep from dying.” In turn, andrew presents his verse, armored as an armadillo after Parent Trap money doubled this time.
“ALL” is used, and the process starts: “A six-foot hole is all I’m tryna be in deep.” He has been planning to leave the Drew-niverse, counting the needles on the path to the grocery store and noticing that the house is too cold, the butter is never soft, and his mother is getting old. His chorus features a sampled voice, which speaks about both hope and warning in one statement: “I guess you know that I’ll be around/That I don’t plan to be around.” Brian Ennals’ verse is similar to how David Ruffin dies: he is dying in a crack house, drunk but still accurate, thinking of his friend whom he hired to save from drugs and trauma, which made him use needles, and reflecting on how little Life asks from us, while death demands so much.
During his work break on his day off, he listens to MF DOOM’s “Hoe Cakes” and does some things in his work, signs out from his job by making Wu sign because he had drunk too much that he cannot tolerate hair in ears anymore, and his nose has already been too much of an indignity. He shouts, “Free Palestine, Israel genocidal.” The crying during “OF” is attributed to very potent onion, and he will cook everything in the kitchen: dessert after each lunch, cooks dinner at work just to go home and cook something, and touches and pets a black cat, since, anyway, bad luck has its own place. At least he decides that it is OK.
On the subject of “STUNTS,” he gives himself one piece of advice: “Rest when you’re tired, even if there’s work to be done.” His heart has a monitor installed while he watches the speedometer—the miles and kilometers covered, the missed calls from those who forget he is in the British time zone. He already has his epitaph written (“The tombstone will read that he did too much/And that’ll be the truth”).
As for sleep on “MY (Pt. II),” it does not appear. Waking up at three eleven with energy levels not yet in yellow, being unable to hold back, not wandering at all, he recognizes only his answer. The stakes of his AI, Allen, with no need for conference calls or talking about his practices. He clips coupons, slices old bread into croutons, cooks udon at any time of the day, and sends a single wish among insomnia: “Calm forever, fuck cancer.” There is no fixed schedule, no date, time, or place; everything will end only when death and taxes finish, and with it comes the moment when he is awake with the pen in his hands.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “MY,” “WILL,” “ALL,” “STUNTS”