Tyga...

The past few years have been fairly quiet for West Coast rap, an unlikely occurrence for a place so influential in hip-hop’s beginnings. Now hails an artist from the same Compton streets as NWA, although this young guy was born in 1989, just as the group had reached their prime. Nicknamed for what his mother saw as his striking resemblance to Tiger Woods, rapper Tyga’s vision of hip-hop is as far away from NWA’s gangsta rap as should be expected in a two-decade time span.
With the June 10^th release of No Introduction on Decaydence Records, rapper Tyga may still need some introduction, but odds are he won’t for long. For one thing, he’s already enjoyed early success such as being named MTV artist of the week (6/30/08), a performance at MTV’s Video Music awards in 2007 and 2008 BET Awards. His work has already been favorably mentioned in New York Magazine and the New York Daily News.
Sampling Brooklyn-born musician Harry Nilsson’s "Coconut," the first single, "Coconut Juice," is an up-tempo instant hit, both because it’s a guaranteed club-banger and because it will probably be on many playlists this summer. But there’s more to this album than one hit. For some it would seem intimidating to rhyme behind one of the most popular rappers in the game right now, but Tyga manages to do just that on his collaboration track with Lil Wayne. While it’s usually difficult to like a song that consistently tells you how great it is, "Exquisite" is ultra-contagious without managing to be annoying, and gives the listener the best idea of Tyga’s lyrical skills.

Those skills may in fact be limited, and his style can’t really be defined as West Coast. Despite his many references to L.A. in his songs and video, Tyga is more St. Louis (think: Chingy) than The Game. When asked the one song he would be honored to rhyme over, he cites Nas’ "If I Ruled The World." He credits Busta Rhymes and his “double-time” flow as his major influence, but Tyga’s flow is too slow and too packaged to be comparable to these New York legends.
The album is a bit too poppy for many hard-core hip hop heads to really enjoy, with its many pop culture references to AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and MySpace on the single AIM and references to BET, MTV and last year’s hit "Wipe Me Down" on "Diamond Life." In fact, there isn’t much depth to his lyrics, less because of his young age, and more because he just seems to shine more on tracks meant for a little head-bobbing and a whole lot of hip-shaking, rather than the mid-tempo, trite "2 am," where he gives a snoozer of an auto-biography of his 18 years. Perhaps Tyga said it best himself, “I always believed in rap about what you know…I ain’t never killed nobody so I don’t know about that.” Straight from the source, who knows he’s at his best when he’s cranking out club-bangers.

www.mypspace.com/tyga

(photo by: drivenbyboredom)