Steve 'Flash' Juon“He is known for his prolific musical output.” No shit. I stumbled across RXKNephew while looking for new rappers from Rochester, and I was quickly astonished by the number of albums he’s released. I thought Kool Keith was prolific. I thought Lil B was even more prolific. At the rate RXK is going he could put both of them to shame combined. I don’t think there’s any page on any website that can keep up with how much he puts out. I have a theory that RXK is trying to put out so much material to game Spotify. By now we all know how bad Spotify is at actually paying artists, but at least in years past you could flood them with so much content it would aggregate to an almost decent payout. A change announced in November 2023 put an end to that by stating that they would only pay for songs which reach 1,000 listens in a calendar year. RXK could be screwed.
Coincidentally the first place I found “You at Thuff Tony on a Tuesday” was Spotify. If I had to guess the name refers to “Tough” Tony Romano, a local Rochester celebrity, although the late boxer and restaurateur’s eatery was actually called Zeeko-Zackos. He may realized calling the album “You at Zeeko-Zackos” was hella local, and that saying “You at Tough Tony’s” might get the ire of Romano’s family, so we wind up with an album title that’s neither of those things. Then again I’m questioning what his references are when we don’t even know why it would be a good OR a bad thing to be at this establishment on a Tuesday. It could be completely made up. I can’t even guarantee he put that much thought into it given how much music he puts out or how confusing and crudely drawn the album cover is. It looks like a fever dream combining a coffee cup, a hot tub, and a strip club.
“They love me in ChiRaq more than Chief Keef”
That’s a ballsy statement, but I can’t say RXK lacks in confidence on “I Love My Licks.” He also says “They love me in L.A. like Tupac Shakur” but then adds “don’t compare me to that nigga, I can’t act at all.” It’s difficult to know whether or not he writes his bars before rapping or just starts freestyling on the spot when he hears a beat, but again given how prolific he is you might assume he’s the “content mill” of Rochester rappers. If so I’m going to give him credit for a few things. Even though his Wikipedia page notes he has been compared to Lil B (I’m not the only person to draw that conclusion), I feel like there’s more thought put into RXK’s shit. B is known to release albums with over a hundred songs, a lot of which wind up just being him recording any stray thought in his head, while RXK puts 7 or 8 songs with good producers on his albums instead of producing tracks himself.
Case in point — both “I Love My Licks” and “Short Story” are laced by Detroit producer Carlo Anthony, well known for his Hank Hill “Who the hell is Carlo?” drop. These tracks will pound your AirPods, car stereo speakers, or any audio system that doesn’t stink. He’s also not a one trick pony in terms of the beats he will flow over, as “In Calls Only” has a TOJU & Jalen Thompson backdrop that sounds like a GOOD Lil B track. The bars are a little weird but amusing nonetheless, with RXK bragging about he’ll fuck his girl at his auntie’s house, then adds “We might have a baby/I’ll sell crack, you can claim the baby on your taxes.” I really have to give RXK credit if he’s coming up with this shit on the spot, because you can’t take your ears off him not knowing what wild thing he’ll say next. His delivery of these lines is clean and crisp too — he’s not fumbling over his words or running out of breath or singing to disguise a lack of rapping ability. He’s the real deal.
In a sense I feel bad for picking “You at Thuff Tony on a Tuesday” at random. RXK has so many albums that this might be far from his best material, or the one he’d want reviewed first, but I’m still pleasantly surprised that someone known for being this prolific produced a listenable album just the same. It’s a very short album — sub 20 minutes — but he makes the most of that time. In his own way it’s “quality over quantity.” He releases a lot of albums, but he doesn’t put so many songs onto ONE album that they’re all subpar. He may be flooding the game with his releases but he’s not flooding the actual releases with substandard product.