P.O.S.

We Don't Even Live Here

10
10/10
Joel Frieders | October 1, 2012

I've been adamantly pro-P.O.S. since his first solo album, Ipecac Neat, completely dominated my manpod for the better part of 2004. His method of getting weirder and weirder and fucking weirder has not only kept me on my fucking toes as a fan, it's actually made me a bigger fucking P.O.S. fanboy, if that's even possible. Maybe it's his voice, maybe it's his meter, maybe it's his subject matter, doesn't fucking matter, I fucking love the dude in a semi-cree-, ok fine mostly-creepy way and I'm not afraid to put this dude at the top of my shortlist for go to rappy rappers bro bro.

P.O.S. exudes a confidence over beats that makes muthafuckers think the beats are banging before even giving them a second spin, and while they usually are in my opinion, dude can put shit where I wouldn't expect and even on the third or fourth pass through I shake my head in disbelief. The dude is so random I wouldn't put it past him to store his tortillas in his glove compartment, or his words that rhyme with dimethylaminoethanol in the pantry bro bro.

His latest album We Don't Even Live Here is pretty fucking close to as insanely exciting a P.O.S. album as any of the previous, and take note that every album is a progression of him growing into a larger and larger force of fucking hell yes. Dude makes the shit seem effortless, and while he keeps up with the occasional yelled hook and off the fucking balls beater selections, it's his ability to craft these lines that stick in your fucking brain long after you've turned the shit off that makes him one of my fucking favorite on the planet, let alone the Rhymesayers roster.

Opening track Bumper starts off like a darkened chase scene through the moist and glum grime of an urban maze. But where another rapper might be throwing out the vibe of "people are chasing me because I am so important rapper rapper", P.O.S. is just out for a night drive for some Funyans and he just so happens to be wearing a ski mask and looking over his shoulder a lot. He's just a dude, there's nobody chasing him, so he takes the opportunity to verbally roll his eyes in the direction of his rapper rapper contemporaries.

"They front so hard them fuckers they can't even look in my eyes."

If you can imagine the way P.O.S. delivers lines as direct and simple as that, you can easily picture yourself repeating it to yourself while rubbing your wife's feets. (Just me? #RAPLIFE BRO.)

We Don't Even Live Here, at first glance, is chock full of guest artists and if you're a dick about it like I am, there isn't one fucking shit guest on paper, and there sure as tattoo'd Mictlan cock ain't one fucking shit guest in your fucking ear.

I'm particularly partial to the track with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon called Where We Land, and not even because I would totally monkey groom that muthafucker's beard even after he ate a super sized bag of cheetos bros, P.O.S. fucking murders this with a calm motherfucking whisper, and it's one of the best songs I've heard this year. Peep the first part of this fucking hook, that keeps developing as the song progresses:

We on our own trip
Fallin in Love by the milligram
Pay no attention
No intention
To keep this from getting out of hand
So we're cystic cause we know that we are so content to sleep where we land

ARE YOU FECKING SHETTING MEY?

P.O.S. takes a fucking super star (to me) like Bon Iver and sits the fucker down behind him and seriously fucking owns the shit in front of him, only providing a handful of seconds featuring just Justin Vernon's voice. And of course, it's cool to hear the two on a track together, but P.O.S. shits all over this track, and it would still be the fucking jam with or without the deliciousness that is the Bon Iver throat.

To synopsizzle the rest of the guests on this album quickly, as I've already sucked this shit off long enough:

  • Astronautalis is quickly (and adorably) wedging his way into the echelon that is Minneapolis hip hop, and his track not only makes me want to break out This Is Our Science again, but I'm tempted to start wearing briefs after hearing this muthafucker's verse.
  • Sims, while one of my favorite actual people on the planet, wraps his raps around that fucking piano strike like a boozehound wraps his fucking fists and subsequent lips around a bottle of Boones Farm.
  • Mike Mictlan is the only Samoan emcee to impress me at every turn, and his rippage on Get Down is, in his own words "a Doomtree goon thing" and it's fucking raunchy.

P.O.S. can get as clubby, weird, angry, bloopy, screamy, dainty, bloody, spitty, profoundy and vile as he wants, all I'll do is continue to listen to this muthafucker slather human shit on the walls of my ear holes.