Pouya: South Side Slugs

Over the past decades, sexuality has become an increasingly desensitized subject, and much of the blame goes to pop culture and ultimately music. Rappers especially carry the responsibility of sexual promotion, if you can call it that, and encourage everyone that having sex and getting pussy all the time is the way to go. Underground rappers thrive off of these kind of dirty innuendos and self glorification through their growing fame. One of these guys is Kevin Pouya, a Miami area native, who, with his crew who call themselves the Buffet Boys, are getting their tracks out by touring to big cities and uploading their stuff to SoundCloud, Twitter, and other social media and music sites. These guys are wild, and their lyrics are creative and different, while containing sexual references that are hilarious and graphic at the same time. With the Buffet Boys being rather young, all in their early twenties, there's definitely a question of how they come up with these lines and topics. One thing that Pouya said in a Miami New Times article (By Lee Castro) is that before all of the rapping, he had "no hoes [and] no fucking food." This is a common theme amongst rappers, that music and their budding fame has changed their lifestyle completely and the Buffet Boys are beyond proud to boast about their rise to relative popularity.

One thing that most people strive to accomplish in life is to have enough capital to be able to thrive and do what the want/need to do. Rappers have this mentality, and spit about it frequently. Pouya is no different, and his 2015 mixtape South Side Slugs brings this up. The main focus of this mixtape is mainly on how money and music have gotten him laid. A lot. And with this comes a new level of confidence, that he then exudes to us listeners. Now, where as most of us don't think right away that we have to go out and have sex, the songs off this album, like a lot of rap music, desensitize the idea of sexuality. South Side Slugs is 18 tracks of music genius, with lyrical twists that brag about the lifestyle Pouya is living. Don't get me wrong, I was brought up with a mindset completely contrary to this and I am not validating this mindset. I merely want to discuss a guy who brings a different and raunchy-er element to rap. The main focus here is really in the hilarity and comical nature of Pouya and his lyrics, despite their sexual contexts. 

South Side Slugs opens with one of the higher rated tracks on the album, "Suicidal Thoughts In The Back Of The Cadillac." This song's chorus echoes the concept that Pouya is having sex with groupies that in the end screw him over and don't care about his life. If you wonder how he feels about this, track 2, "Strange" blatantly says that Pouya "hate[s] [the] hoes, hate[s] [their] attitude" but he doesn't care because in the end he's sleeping with them. The next few tracks don't have as much influence derived from sex compared to money and success, yet the commonality is the way he refers to women, whether he calls them bitch, hoe, pussy, etc. The sexual premise returns in "241" where Pouya, Germ, and Mikey the Magician all rap about some wild sexual and life experiences, including jacking off in front of another dudes wife at the beach, doing anal, and hooking up with girls that they don't give a shit about. I know, it's cringeworthy stuff (ok maybe just the first two) but you can see the way they just don't care about their actions, as long as they're getting rich and getting girls. One line that sets the tone for Pouya's obsession with sex is in track 7 "Dandy In Love," and he says "[he] talks about [his] dick a lot, cuz [he] likes to fuck a lot." To me, that's just confidence and Baby Bone, as he calls himself, puts himself out there in a way that you gotta respect him, even if you don't agree with his lifestyle.

In line with this concept, I wanted to input some of Pouya's actual thoughts of himself. In a recent "No Jumper" interview (which is to the right-->), Pouya and his boy Fat Nick talk about what their lives were like and how stuff has changed since rapping took off. Early in the interview, Pouya says that he's less social than the other guys in the group because he has social anxiety. The interesting thing about this is that his music tells a whole different side of his life. There's a distinct separation between Pouya's thoughts and actions, and his lyricism is a testament to that. In "The Sensual Sounds of Kevin Pouya," Baby Bone is talking to his chick and asks if she's "livid with the bullshit [he] been speaking of." This helps us see how he may have second thoughts about his actions and words, but ultimately he just gets down to the dirty business with whoever this girl is. Even when he gets with these girls though, he knows he's going to move on to another one. "Smash Bros" opens up with Pouya saying that he promises that he is going to leave the girl for another one, who will most likely have more to offer (bigger butt, nicer car, etc). As disrespectful as you and I think this is, I don't think Pouya cares in the slightest because he's banking on there being other woman to sleep with. He's taking an approach that can be interpreted as himself being a commodity, and (as stated in "Father of Contention") the women have to come "get it while it's hot." After referring to women as a commodity thus far in the album, it's intriguing that he makes the move to objectify himself. Here is this "famous" guy who is essentially selling himself to society, talking about how people want him for his reputation and what he can give them. It's definitely intriguing to hear this kind of counter, or role reversal in an album so objective of women, money, and drugs. He doesn't dwell on this topic for long, especially since he comes back and makes the main line in "So What" about how he "fucked your hoe last night, so what?" Again, he's talking about the correlation between getting money and getting bitches, which he doesn't think too much about because it's becoming a routine for him.


The last 3 songs off South Side Slugs are, in scope, "harder" than the rest of the mixtape, no innuendo intended. Spice Girls, featuring Denzel Curry and SdotBraddy, focuses on money and popularity first, then Pouya comes in and makes an anecdote in the words of a girl's parents who warn her about getting with Pouya because "he's a scumbag" and "if you fall in love he gone leave you." It's comical that Pouya brings up this dialogue because he's completely aware of the opinions against him and he owns up to them and uses them to prove a point. Further deepening his statements, "FYE" harbors a sick flow from both Pouya and Sir Michael Rocks, and they blast their haters and talk a lot of shit about their opinions and, of course, their girls. One of the funniest lines off this track is definitely in this song, when Sir Michael Rocks starts his verse with "we just want to get rich and suck some titties." Even later in his verse, he relates his pullout game to Tom Brady, which is symbolic because even though Brady isn't well liked, he is one of the best and he doesn't miss many passes. This could be an underlying statement that these rappers know they may not be well liked by haters, but their talent is supreme. The last track of this album is "I Know You See It" and it features most of the guys who appear on South Side Slugs, including the Buffet Boys Germ, Fat Nick, Mikey The Magician, and also SdotBraddy. The song is a cumulation of the themes on the mixtape, ranging from drug use to violence, to (of course) sexuality. The main premise of sex comes in Pouya's verse, and he talks about getting with his haters' girls. Baby Bone states to these other guys "don't be surprised when I do ya ho fluently," almost treating it as a certainty. Yet again, confidence in sexuality is Pouya's go to, and he sets a standard of respect for himself, based off of his success economically and socially.

Whether or not this is right in the eyes of society, I can't say, but the Buffet Boys are using their abilities to improve their own situations, from low income jobs to higher paid performers. As a result of this they get a lot of attention, most notably from the female community In a September 2015 academic journal about the paradigms on gender and sexuality, Denise Herd gets into a discussion about sociological research of masculinity in rap music. One of the things she brings up is the overarching existence of a "'street code'" that "strip[s] men of traditional sources of dignity" while also encouraging males to become sexually active and to treat women poorly. Herd talks about other research in misogynistic themes that fall in line with this so called "street code." The themes highlighted can all be found at least once in Pouya's South Side Slugs: "(a) derogatory naming and shaming of women, (b) sexual objectification of women, (c) distrust of women, (d) legitimation of violence against women, and (e) celebration of prostitution and pimping." In the case of the Buffet Boys, rapping and sex is, at least to our interpretation and knowledge, meant to be for fun and good times. Denise Herd is getting into a deeper, more violent part of the genre of rap, however as the Boys grow with popularity, there may be an increase in distaste for the style and actions they make.  I think that this is a really valid position, since the music industry is starting to produce some pretty "talented" female artists that use sexuality as a key point, like Iggy and Nikki Minaj (hence the quotation marks on talented). The journal does well to isolate those five points, and in accordance with Pouya's music, it's almost uncanny how they match up. I don't know if this gives him any credibility on the societal scale, but I think he definitely has experience in this realm of today's lower end culture.

In light of the negative comments towards these types of opinions, Pouya, Fat Nick, Germ, and the other guys are probably going to stay with what's working and tour around the country, all the while hooking up with the girls drawn in by the money, fame, music, and Pouyalilpou.

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Logic: Under Pressure

Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, primarily known by his stage name Logic, grew up in a poor and unstable family out of Gaithersburg, Maryland. Logic began rapping seriously at age 17, after he was kicked out of high school for cutting class, and incrementally gained attention through his lyrical style and natural talent. He received several offers from well know labels and rappers, like Nas, yet he didn’t want to be caught in the underfoot of such accomplished artists. Since 2011, he’s dropped 2 official mixtapes and his freshman album “Under Pressure,” with the help of Visionary and Def Jam. “Under Pressure,” a 15 track long memoir of Logic’s childhood and experience as a rapper, gives the listeners a sense of the life he led and continues to lead as his fan base, and wallet, expand. Logic’s main purpose of this album is to give people insight on the environment he grew up in, as well as build a basis on which to criticize modern society and the effect it has on a wide array of people. In Logic’s case, modern society is his experience with abusive or abused parents, and even the struggles of growing up in such poor conditions, influenced by socio-economic issues, like lack of schooling, poverty, and cultural racism. Through the experience of these things, primarily inflicted on him by his family, Logic has been handed the means to express his brutally honest opinions and thoughts about this unbelievable reality of living, which still exists in parts of the United States.

This part of his life, before the music success, was a large part of what makes "Bobby" Bryson Hall who he is today. In a "Complex" piece from June 2014, editorial producer Insanul Ahmed talks about Logic's difficult childhood in the suburbs of Gaithersburg, living in a household affected by substance abuse, racism, and relative poverty. In this same context, the culture of young rappers enduring dangerous and corrupt environments has been a commonality in the genre, and Logic has been through a lot to get to where he is today. Logic’s ascension to the top represents the American Dream and, being from the DMV (District, Maryland, Virginia), it makes me proud, even as a stranger, to think that someone has come from such a difficult situation and turned it into something positive for himself. Logic brings so much to the table for hip-hop and has created his own vibe through his music.



Granted, I am a pretty big advocate and fan of Logic's, and I think he is a huge asset to the rap community. Thematically, Logic hones in on topics that many other rappers do today, but for this fact he is grouped with all the other artists who grow up like that. What separates Logic and what really defines his music is his lyricism and his natural ability to spit bars. I highly encourage you to listen to this album and actually hear how he can spit. One of the tracks that really captures this talent is "Metropolis" and how he is able to rap fast while also integrating incredible lines and themes, like this section of the first verse: "And I'm feeling it uh, hope when I'm forty I'm still in it, One of the few that will be killing it uh, Yeah, young motherfucker that be giving what he living, On the road to success you know that I'm driven." He talks about how he hopes to continue his career and hopeful success throughout his life, while just completely spitting the words on this really sick beat going on in the background.

 Continuing this analysis, what makes this album special in terms of hip-hop is the means by which Logic molds his lyrics into concrete claims and statements. Most of the tracks highlight his family’s struggles in the lower class as an effect of addiction and neglect. In “Soul Food,” he mentions how his mom was on drugs and his dad was nowhere to be found, when all he wanted to do was be a kid and play. I imagine that a kid who had/has to deal with a situation like this would have to mature much quicker than his or her peers, and from what it seems Logic had to do this at an even younger age, after his siblings got involved in drugs. In line with the theme of addiction, the name Nikki gets thrown around a lot, similarly to how Kendrick Lamar had “Sherane” in “good kid, m.A.A.d city.” The difference here is that Nikki isn’t a person. Nikki refers to nicotine, cigarettes, which impacted Logic rather hard, all brought up in his song “Nikki.” The reference arises in some of his other tracks, but these all solidify a dependency on something negative: a crutch for the difficulties that impacted him throughout his upbringing. Drugs are a consistent representation of bad choices, as well as being a way for someone to tolerate a loss or hardship. Logic’s perspective of these substances is cloudy, from his own grasp on nicotine to talking about his sister’s pill problem in the track “Under Pressure.” In Logic’s eyes, the choices people make in regards to their bodies have varying results, but to heal from those addictions, you have to accept it yourself and recognize that it’s an issue. His parents, especially his father didn’t realize their mistakes and didn’t change in time to help those around them.

           The abandonment that his parents brought into his life returns and is a precedent in the albums title song, “Under Pressure.” The track is 9 minutes long, and it is a description of all of his stress as a rapper and person. Logic spits about his past, using real voice recordings from his brother and father, while also talking about his current situation and how much pressure there is for him to succeed. I find this intriguing because this is one of the only things Logic has ever really committed to in his life, and he learned this on his own. The hook of this song hints that he hopefully will be able to commit to bigger and better things in the future. The hook essentially says that he fears he’ll never find someone else to be with because he’s working on his craft all the time. He wants to be a part of a family; to get a second chance for a positive and promising life, and one of the things that is holding him back is the pressure of the job. This happens often these days because the cultural belief is that the harder you work, the farther you’ll get yourself. Like Logic says, he feels “Buried Alive,” even as he admits that it’s “just in [his] mind.” Logic internalizes his feelings, at least before his career as a rapper, and this album is almost the big reveal of his emotions and pressures.


When someone comes out from the underground of hip-hop, there is usually good reason, and Logic is no exception. Without considering his background for a moment, he really is a special artist, with talent that has been matched and even raised above big names, like Kendrick Lamar. This isn't how the genre works though: similar to what J Cole says in Forest Hills Drive, there isn't a pedestal for rappers to clamber onto. The music style is meant to be even, and logic is earning his place amongst those who have done great things for the culture that is hip-hop. His sophomore album is dropping within the next few months (November), and I look forward to seeing all that Logic brings to the table, after putting himself out to the world in "Under Pressure."