Through the passage of time, one of hip-hop’s lost structural columns is the importance of performance. In the early days of the genre, there was a refusal to bestow the title of “Master of Ceremonies” upon a rapper until they moved a crowd of Black and Brown youth with their voice and their energy. With the increasing accessibility to music distribution platforms, the barrier to entry has never been lower, and thus, the need to sharpen your intangible skills as an emcee becomes obsolete. As a byproduct of the nonchalant, “cringe to care” nature of society, a lot of mainstream rappers today tend to adopt this same level of insouciance within their public persona; monotone delivery on wax, rapping over the vocals to their songs in concert, no incitement to make the people want to move to the music in a live setting. It seems giving it your all just isn’t the cool thing to do these days; it is perceived as more impressive to seem effortless and subtly dispassionate, while the music itself can tiptoe the line of fun and listenable without being too weird. No chaos, keep it simple.
But chaos is something Bronx rapper and producer Hester Valentine has intentionally leaned into and harnessed as an artistic medium throughout the entirety of his career. The beat selection in his work ranges from awkwardly groovy to thoroughly abrasive, and his live performances are beyond captivating, with his primal bellows in between verses and strikingly heavy speech within them, enthralling the audience in any room he performs. More often than not, Valentine carries this same intensity in the booth when he gets in album mode. While some of his earlier work has been expunged from the internet, other albums, such as the nightmarish Outside House-produced I Can’t Cut Your Hair and the versatile yet equally rambunctious make me, make me have made it clear that if nothing else, you can always expect high-energy, thought-provoking raps, and violently jarring production to match. I AM THE FEMALE WEEZY contains both of those things, but at a way higher level than Valentine has tapped into previously.
In a previous conversation I had with Valentine about the album, he spoke about centralizing coming as himself with this album in comparison to his past work. “[With my prior records] I felt there were moments in which [I] was doing things that didn’t necessarily feel like a decision I would 100% make. I felt like I had a motive other than a creative, inspired decision to do certain things… [on this album] my hands are all over it, and that’s why I love it.” This time around, he leaves no room for any outside forces tainting the authenticity of his vocal presentation on this record; it could not be any more of a Hester Valentine album in spirit and sound. From the tough, battle rap-inspired punchlines like on “michael” (“Dawg you ain’t touched the chrome once, I’m assuming nookie”), to the hilarious commentary on so-called hip-hop enthusiasts (“Rap page’s owners look like Corey Graves”), to the succinctly witty, sneakily well-written lines like on the self-titled outro where he raps “brandish heat, Brandon Lee; think I’m fake,” the writing on I AM THE FEMALE WEEZY exemplifies all of the shining qualities of Valentine’s penmanship; the shrewd one-liners, ever-evolving flows and the overall thematic continuity are a staple to this album.
The most poignant moments of the project are within the literal performance of each song. The raw emotion on display is palpable through the speakers and serves as a passionate disavowal of the notion of a passive listening experience. Valentine denounces the idea of being mere background noise to the function, and commands a level of attentiveness that cannot be overlooked. Whether it be the screaming adlibs and verses on “luminum” and “untitled joint” (assisted by AGHETTOPHILOSOPHER and frequent collaborator Outside House) or the shy, karaoke-esque singing on the first and fourth tracks respectively, Valentine is holding his vocal range to the same meticulously disorderly standard as the production.
All in all, the I AM THE FEMALE WEEZY experience is a journey of unpredictable flows and soundscapes, with the only constant being Valentine’s relentless fervor. His use of the Nicki Minaj interview clips on “nose job” and “in defense of feel! THE A.I. PROJECT” hammer home the idea of contorting oneself to a more recognizable or frankly digestible version, an idea that Valentine feels many artists fall victim to and that he entirely rejects throughout the album. “I like the idea of, for this thing to have significance, it has to change into something else; [Nicki] has to be the female Weezy… the branding [has] to be this thing you’re more familiar with but a different version of it. That’s how I felt like artists are forced to [present].” To be the “female Weezy” is to be a lesser interpretation of a thing the people have already decided they love, thus creating an uphill battle to establish one’s own name, sensibilities, and individual artistic qualities. In an effort to combat this trope, Valentine created this anomalously constructed album that is so singular to his artistry that it would be impossible to recreate, or even be accused of replicating a preexisting body of work. (As he raps on “could neva take ova,” “who imitating me on the fucking tape?”) From the ever-present Don Demarco tags to the cult member speeches sprinkled throughout, the cogs that make up this machine of an album were crafted to precision in Valentine’s image for a project that will hold place in the psyches of all listeners for a substantial amount of time…
or until Hester decides to delete it and start all over again.
