A somber track featuring Kendrick Lamar.
We’re in no shortage of wows from Kendrick Lamar in 2016, starting with his mesmerizing Grammys performance to the surprise drop of his album untitled, unmastered. His unruffled contribution to Bay Area rapper Mistah F.A.B.’s new track ‘Survive’ is just another tick on the list.
For those unfamiliar with Mistah F.A.B., one of the things he’s most famous for outside of his hometown Oakland is his mid-2000s track ‘Ghost Ride It’, which further popularized the (pretty dangerous) trend of opening your driver’s side door while your car is in motion and climbing onto the hood. E-40 had coined the term in 2006, but Mistah F.A.B.’s paean to the stunt took it across the country. (When Nef the Pharaoh told FACT TV at SXSW that the Bay is responsible for everything cool in rap, he kinda wasn’t lying.)
‘Survive’, which also features Long Beach rapper and Slaughterhouse member Crooked I, is a swift 180 from the hyphy bombast we expect from F.A.B. It’s sober and reflective, a portal into how varied the Bay can be.
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