WORDS Liam Maher
With his latest mixtape, Blue Chips 2, Action Bronson somehow manages to improve upon his usual standards of verbal dexterity, versatile flow and his unique penchant for outlandish punch lines. Party Supplies has also upped his production standards significantly, sampling everything from 80s synth pop, bossa jazz and samba, providing a strong base for Bronson to weave his rhymes around. He also nods to old-school favourites on cuts like Through The Eyes of A G, which features a sample from Quincy Jones’ Summer in the City, used to best effect by The Pharcyde on Passin’ Me By. Name-checking a multitude of professional wrestlers, Bronson’s rhymes centre on his status as a heavyweight (literally) in the rap game. Practice, one of the mixtapes highlights, encapsulates everything that was great on the first instalment of Blue Chips: smooth horns float around a pocket-groove beat that wouldn’t sound out of place in a blaxploitation film. Bronson is on his finest form here, talking about wrestling hippos, gators and going to drug dealing anonymous.
Contemporary Man was the first song that Bronson and Party Supplies collaborated on and serves as an embodiment of what the whole Blue Chips project is about. A four minute once off, the song is a homage to 80s freestyle culture but with the instrumentals of some 80s classics such as Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel and Sussidio by Phil Collins. Contemporary Man, more than any other songs, brings the good-humoured nature of the mixtape to the fore. On other Bronson releases, such as his collaboration with Harry Fraud (and major label debut) Saab Stories, Bronson tended to indulge in darker lyrics to the point of the grotesque in order to suit the darker beats that Fraud was producing. There are no such excesses present here, and while the lyrics may verge on absurdity, they never make the listener uncomfortable. Many of the songs on Blue Chips 2 act as a tribute to the original party spirit of the hip-hop scene; and it is in a party atmosphere that this album is most at home. The beats run through samples that any listener familiar with the 80s would recognise and appreciate while some of the punchlines (that come hard and thick) are among the funniest to have come out New York in the past few years.
Blue Chips 2 offers further proof that Bronson works best with Party Supplies, who curbs some of his tendencies towards lyrical excess and brings out his humourous side, which is where Bronson excels. The mixtape will please fans of the previous collaboration, as well as Bronson fans in general, who will no doubt appreciate his trademark wit.
