Song of the Day #291 - Ty Dolla $ign - Long Time (ft. Quavo)

I wake up, she cookin' me breakfast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeFFyHATbbY

2015 is still bombarding me with music, as stuff I under-appreciated or outright missed becomes more apparent in a variety of ways. Like Ty Dolla $ign pushed last year's Free TC back to relevancy by releasing a deluxe edition. Releasing a deluxe version like four months after the original is uhh pretty unconventional. But taking advantage of the freedom from thematic association with the album to pack it full of bangers is the standard, and for this I'm grateful he made the book play.

Last time I talked about Ty, I mentioned how I was impressed with his ability to highlight himself as a sort of "glue" that could hold together his fractured multifaceted/multigenre view of Los Angeles. And since then he's proven that this sort of thing is his forte, I think... bringing together complex, conflicting emotional states into something that feels simple and human. Like look at Kanye's beautiful "Real Friends", with it's strange mixture of dreamy idealism and petty disdain - it's Ty's voice that grounds it in human experience by showing the complete thought process. So it's no surprise that he works well on this similarly dreamy beat (produced by the one and only Metro Boomin, now back to his Young Thug tag... Metro Thuggin confirmed???), rapping girls and gang shit with his rough but elegant drawl.

The real revelation this song gave me, though, is that there is basically no situation where a song won't be improved by someone shouting "MIGOS!" and then going ham with a triplet flow. Like as much as I praise the versatility of Ty being able to bring so many emotional modes to fruition, the Migos flow, an even more singular flow, is even more impressive in being able to take any emotional state and bring it to a maximal point of hype, a version of that same mindset that's a lot more "hell yeah". Like really honestly try to think of any song where you hear someone shout "MIGOS!" and you don't say "hell yeah". That isn't a challenge, you'll probably be able to think of some. It's just a sincere recommendation that you try because it's really fun.