Steve 'Flash' JuonI’ve heard some bad rappers in my lifetime, but it takes someone truly special to reach the bottom of my well of despair then DRILL LIKE HELL to reach the Earth’s molten core. Ladies and gentlemen let me introduce you to Flyysoulja. If you’ve never heard of this man, he’s one half of an infamous rap group known as the Island Boys. If you’re not familiar with them either, I can only assume you don’t about their feuds with the Pauls (Logan and Jake), or that Snoop Dogg once described their raps by holding his head in pain and proclaiming “I’m speechless. Two goofballs in a pool.” In fact let’s run that clip in case you still need some context who Flyysoulja is.
Now I can’t lie to you and tell you I had any hope “Stardom” would redeem Flyysoulja. The Island Boys went viral in the truest sense of the word — like a disease that makes the whole world go into pandemic lockdown. I can tolerate IceJJFish for a whole album longer than any Island Boys song ever. They’re both terrible, but at least I can sense a sincerity to Ice’s awfulness. He’s putting his whole heart into it. Island Boys just want to be social media sensations. They want you to look at their awful haircuts, gawk at their tattoos, marvel at their terrible crooning, and watch their unnecessary beefs with other social media celebrities. They are the purest expression of the internet and reality television shows combined. Flyysoulja and his fraternal twin brother Kodiyakredd are famous for being famous and that’s it. Talent has nothing to do with it.
Nevertheless I felt compelled to sit down and torture myself for nearly 17 minutes listening to “Stardom.” Unfortunately it took longer to write this review than to listen to Flyysoulja’s solo album, so I had to listen to it a second time…. then a third… and then I seriously contemplated getting a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet to get TORE UP. You can’t listen to anything as purposefully, intentionally, maliciously awful as “Money” without numbing yourself to the point of alcohol poisoning. If you don’t believe me you can either play the song yourself or read the lyrics below. I recommend the latter.
“You know how I’m in the yacht with all them hoes, hoes
I’m gonna fuck them all, yeah
All of these bitches they say that they love me
You know I’m slimy
You know how I’m coming, you know what I’m on
I’m just on gang yeah
You know I’m a blessing, you know yuh
Know, yeah, yeah
I be going test my dance with all my pants”
If you chose poorly and actually listened to the song you might be thinking “Flyysoulja isn’t even rapping to the beat.” He’s not. You might also be thinking “Flyysoulja isn’t even trying to rhyme.” No, he’s not. Let me tell you something — in the middle of this paragraph my cat dropped a scat in his box so foul I was relieved to stop listening to “Stardom.” I would rather smell the excrement my cat left behind than listen to Flyysoulja not attempt to rhyme, flow, sing or do anything correctly. I got up and cleaned his litter and then came back to something that stinks worse — this music. At least IceJJFish could manage a redeeming beat and a falsetto that was so obnoxious it could almost be considered charming. There’s no charm or art to this. Like the great Calvin Broadus said, I’m speechless.