Steve 'Flash' Juon“Man I’m doper than anybody you know”
Chris Crack is probably right. I’ve gone from “Who is he?” to “Where was he hiding?” in an incredibly short amount of time. The Chicago to Colorado transplant tried something different with “Crackheads Live Longer Than Vegans” — he sold the entire album as one long track on Bandcamp for $12.99. I don’t know if that worked since I don’t have access to his numbers (nor anybody else’s) but if you want individually broken down tracks you can find them in a variety of other places. YouTube is one.
In an interview with Billboard, Crack said it took him over a year of “tinkering” to create this album, while some can be done in a single day. I get a feeling that’s because his process has a lot in common with Madlib’s, right down to manipulating both the music and his vocals to create alter egos. “Goals Only Exist in Soccer” doesn’t necessarily deserve credit for the former though as it’s pretty shamelessly ripping off Kendrick Lamar’s “Poetic Justice,” which itself heavily borrowed from Janet Jackson’s “Any Time, Any Place.” The good news is he as much as admits it with the sample at the beginning of the next track. “I yanked it. I yanked the whole thing.” I laughed. And it’s still a good song even the third time around, so you can have it Chris (so long as no lawyers bitch).
Humor definitely plays a big part in Crack’s presentation, from the album title to song titles like “My Ex Was a Garden Tool.” If you don’t get the joke here’s a spoiler. Here’s one of my own — after listening to this song even Lil B would tell you that Crack is a Based God.
“I need a girl with a switch blade
She gon’ bring it all back to me cause
she was locked up them six days
That’s a quick pay, just get paid
My bitch slay at a fixed pace
Let’s get laid, you could never be this base”
It might be a bit vulgar, but nobody said life was PG, and Chris saw more than his fair share of the rated R that Chicago had to offer growing up. With a father that was incarcerated and a mother who struggled to make ends meet, he and his sibs had to hustle to get ahead, and as much as we all hate to say it the greatest mother of innovation is necessity. Chris Crack needed to make it, and that hunger fueled him in a positive way, creating rap music that covers a range of emotions from the somber to the lighthearted. He seems almost liquid in his approach to it, able to flow into any style or sound he needs, and “Crackheads Live Longer Than Vegans” just proves I had been sleeping on him far too long.