D.C. native El Cousteau raps by way of a fraught second : NPR

A local of Washington, D.C., El Cousteau facilities the town on Soiled Harry 2, even when rapping about his journeys exterior of it.

Tyra Mitchell

disguise caption

toggle caption

Tyra Mitchell

In 2017, the rapper GoldLink was lamenting a vanishing Chocolate Metropolis and doing his half to attempt to protect its tradition. His album from that spring, At What Price, handled Washington, D.C.’s native hallmarks like psychic landmarks in an effort to stave off the erasure he noticed encroaching, introduced on by the gentrification overtaking the world. “I really feel like we’re lengthy overdue for our story to be informed,” he informed The Washington Put up. “If it does not occur now, then all the pieces we had goes to be gone, and nobody will ever find out about it — it’s going to be like a misplaced metropolis.”

I used to be interested by this concept whereas listening to Soiled Harry 2, the brand new mixtape from D.C. rapper El Cousteau. Eight years later, GoldLink’s issues are much more legitimate, and but Cousteau’s rise looks like an affirmation that the town’s essence can by no means really be misplaced. Spend just a little time along with his songs and it rapidly turns into clear the place he is from and the way he takes that historical past with him. As his identify implies, Cousteau is an explorer in his music, a jetsetter and stay wire — “Spin world wide twice, got here again with a straight face,” he quips — however he is by no means too removed from dwelling. He is on Bladensburg Highway from the primary to the fifteenth (“85 South“), and he is locked in from uptown to Wheeler Highway (“Nitro“). Listening to him rap, you get the sense that his passage is twofold: He’s bringing D.C. to all his bucket-list locations, and he’s amassing trinkets on the highway to convey dwelling the tales they bear, the experience again all the time the extra vital one.

Cousteau typically sounds between locations, his verses animated and antsy as if desperate to get someplace, however objects in his rearview are nearer than they seem. Because of this time-dilated depth notion, he is simply as more likely to reminisce about packing a two-tone chrome, compact .40 1911 in highschool as he’s to lavish in taking his girlfriend to Venice for the weekend, decked out in Celine. Getting the place you are going can imply leaving some issues behind, and on “Ballad of France,” from his 2024 breakthrough tape Merci, Non Merci, he raps about lacking his grandmother’s funeral whereas out on the highway, making an attempt to advance his profession: “I be unhappy after I miss y’all cellphone calls ‘trigger I am far-off from dwelling now.” In a way, his verses really feel like an effort to resolve these connections, leaving voicemail recaps from inside his trajectory as he makes an attempt to repay his street-level training with a stamped passport.

Soiled Harry 2 instantly alerts the place Cousteau has been and the place he is headed. On the opener, the rapper’s voice is blustery as he notes that he’s addressed as “sir” in label conferences now. He is simply as brazen rapping about holding somebody at gunpoint, or excessive pace chases, or his cousin coming dwelling from the fed after six years. “You understand the place I am coming from / Rising up in that nook home,” he raps earlier than declaring, “I am a menace to society / I am a product of my atmosphere / Grew up round n****s promoting dope, doing armed robberies,” the scene taking part in like a contemporary twist on the crooked native tales of Wayne “Silk” Perry and Rayful Edmond.

The times of these traffickers operating round D.C., mythologized by crime docuseries like American Gangster, are gone, and but, in latest weeks, the District has been beneath a form of home siege as the results of such a fantasy. On Aug. 11, by government order, the Trump administration put native police beneath federal management, bringing in federal legislation enforcement from companies such because the U.S. Park Police, DEA, FBI, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service, with the acknowledged function of cleansing up a “crime emergency.” “There shall be no protected harbor for violent criminals in D.C.,” White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned in a press release, including that the elevated presence was meant to guard harmless residents. (As many famous in response, violent crime in D.C. had been at a 30-year low.) There’s something placing about listening to a D.C. native rap about being a product of the town’s crime amid a militant anti-crime push, as an on-the-ground survey of the streets presently beneath scrutiny. In Soiled Harry 2, you may hear what it is actually prefer to stay with crime, to be taken by each the drama and actuality of it, to maneuver on from it, and to not let it sully your love for dwelling.

Cousteau, for his half, has been unambiguous about utilizing his music to unpack a sophisticated upbringing. “The complexities of life be so loopy typically, prefer it will get to the purpose the place the world be needing a motherf***** with a perspective that simply does not don’t have any bulls***,” he mentioned final November. “I ain’t about to present you no gimmick, none of that s***. I’ll simply discuss to you about life. I’ll inform you my flaws and all that s***. … That very same honesty and empathy in my music helped me develop too.”

That mandate is evident on Soiled Harry 2, as is the expansion. The undertaking feels uniquely urbane, stylish and worldly, with out dropping any of its homegrown attraction. Cousteau is a contemporary dandy with a rigorously curated aesthetic, having modeled for Telfar and Wales Bonner and aligned himself with fellow vogue killa A$AP Rocky. Creatively, he is fallen in with new-age sages of lo-fi hip-hop like Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE, summoning their approaches and palettes (compact music — 13 songs, 28 minutes — and busy, full-bodied loop manufacturing), however his flows are possessed by the distinctive run-on power of DMV avenue rap and have a aptitude for the flamboyant. The type generated by this fusion is a swanky, snappy form of goon discuss, adrenalized but concentrated, verging on mumble rap. “This pen I bought set up a way of life, comes absolutely furnished,” he raps on “Straight to It.” Few could make being a roughneck sound so positively pimped out.

At instances, it may really feel like Cousteau is rapping particularly in regards to the D.C. that the president is imagining. On “Words2LiveBy,” the Earl-featuring standout from Merci, Non Merci, he rapped, “I am in Northeast the place it is unsolved murders.” Soiled Harry 2‘s “Quid Professional Quo” is marked by ruthlessness: “Really feel like all people towards me and ours,” goes one bloody-eyed line. Pay nearer consideration, although, and you will hear somebody who has internalized the Darwinism of the hood. Drug cash helped his mother purchase his faculty garments, he explains. D.C. is not a spot he’s making an attempt to flee; his city-hopping adventures should not an outlet however an impact, the results of all his enterprising. He carries and is carried by his hustler’s spirit, and he makes the case for it quite plainly on “Rose Ave.“: “To afford the price of dwelling, that is what a n**** do crime for.”

However Soiled Harry 2 is about extra than simply getting it out the mud to stay within the lap of luxurious; it is about figuring out that dwelling has instilled him with resolve, and that the journey bears all of the onerous classes. “Lodge in Los Angeles, I am from the capital, fifteen minutes from the trenches,” he raps on “A Good Giggle,” his murmurs chopping by way of the wailing pattern. On “Bergamot,” he is much more direct: “You have to be pleased with me / What I did from what I used to be given / Replicate on my previous like that / Speak in regards to the draw back prefer it’s the good things.” The tune is all in regards to the grind, working smarter, being spurred by doubters and reaping the rewards afforded by resilience — however on this second, he stews within the nuance for a second. Rappers have a manner of turning tragedy into triumph, and Cousteau’s evolution is offered as a byproduct of a glass-half-full outlook. The masks slips for simply an prompt earlier than he snaps again to nonchalance: “No cause to level any fingers / We cannot get into that s*** tonight.”

Soiled Harry 2 was launched on Sept. 10, the identical day that the emergency powers permitting for D.C.’s federal takeover expired. As of now, there was no important withdrawal on the bottom: Armed Nationwide Guardsmen nonetheless stalk avenue corners and Metro stations, and ICE continues its patrols. Chocolate Metropolis is acquainted with aggressive policing, and Cousteau’s perspective feels consultant of the fortitude displayed up and down Bladensburg and Wheeler Roads. When he turns again to the grind after his transient spell of ambivalent reflection, speaking in regards to the draw back prefer it’s the good things, it feels nearly quintessentially D.C., particularly now. Similar to the town and its natives, Cousteau is perpetually, uneasily, soldiering on.