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Rap has been going through an interesting transition lately, especially with the insertion of mental health issues into various aspects of popular culture. There’s an anxiety tinged with modern rap music, and not with respect to issues related to gun violence, gangs, or overall crime. It’s about girls, broken hearts, juggling relationships, and navigating the typical hedonism scene. One of the latest following this trend is the musical duo HEwas and Afroman with their new single ‘Wholething’, recently released by HEwas on his Spotify page. Like the trend mentioned above, the song is a light-hearted, catchy but surprisingly layered study of dating and extramarital affairs – albeit the capacity of such stresses to be easily remedied by a devil-may-care attitude and a little bit of the old electric spinach and hashish.
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You’re not my spouse, spend a couple nights this week at your house, declares Afroman. His voice is soothing and calm, devoid of the abrasiveness or edge typical with hardcore rap. I’m bluffing my face, I’m riding my ride. Stop trying to FaceTime – all the time. This is soon complimented by HEwas during the chorus, the latter sporting a contrasting said anxiety with high-pitched emo machismo and a kinetic energy that threatens to overwhelm. The juxtaposition between the two, along with the evocative and sometimes purposeful off-key nature of the ambience and beat of the song makes ‘Wholething’ an expert in superficial craft. There’s a delicacy to all the spare parts assembled, regardless of the song’s somewhat shameless perspective on relationships and the occasional juggling on the side. You know I got high with my homey HEwas, she was a sexual plus now she just a hangover begging so I felt like a king until she blew in the hole, Afroman proclaims. Amen to that.
The quality of an entertainer’s worth isn’t just about the latter’s own talent or craft, but who he chooses to work with. HEwas’s smarts as an artist and self-distributor is working with Afroman, a veteran of the rap and overall music industries respectively. Afroman has always been somewhat irreverent since his rise in the charts, coming from the Snoop Dogg school of rap which consists of witty, snappy zingers, a relaxed and laidback perspective, and the frequent mention of narcotics between every stanza. His 2002 Grammy award-nominated album, Because I Got High, is indicative enough of his goofy and accessible performative persona, a buffer for rising artist HEwas’s vitriolic intonations. HEwas more or less introduces concepts in the song with his cutting-edge waver – immediately calling to mind the most visceral aspects of a bad breakup, Afroman quickly packaging said evocations with often hilarious and decidedly un-PC rhetoric about the same issue.
Yet for the sake of the track’s coherence, both artists are on common ground – speaking the same language about the issues they depict. There’s no sense of disconnect or thematic contrast, in spite of contrast essentially making every other part of the song click. The result is something easy on the ears, but stimulating for the brain – albeit with a relaxed, Socal vibe complete with every indicative quality related to the joys and revelations of marijuana.
by Bethany Page
