Mixtape Review: Curren$y – Smokee Robinson

A few hours after his hometown team won the Superbowl, Curren$y released what his loyal fans had been searching for during the game’s commercial breaks, Smokee Robinson.

The mixtape’s artwork is crazy, and most likely received a bit of modification after the Saints took home the Lambardi Trophy, seeing as how the release date (February 7th) was set long before the Saints were certain to make the big game.

Smokee Robinson came out at a great time in Hot Spitta’s career, as he’s linked up with both Dame Dash and Creative Control to explore his own creative freedom.

In addition to being a good fit for Curren$y, the house that Dame is building seems to cater to Curren$y’s fans who are looking for the creative lines and weed references he’s known for. Like Curren$y spits on “The Candy Lady’s Crib,” “Dumb it down why?  When my audience is just as smart as I.”

Let’s take a closer look at some of the standout tracks off Smokee Robinson:

Curren$y – “Audio Dope”

This track has been on repeat ever since I downloaded the project.  Curren$y speaks to other rappers with:

“You lost your legs to that cookie cutter,
The suits ain’t letting you walk out of that deal motherfucker,
Potato chips, layed up, frito raise up,
Got a couple bitches coming through to blaize up…
Got a lot of emcees sneak dissin’,
Yea Whodi threw them slangs, but I caught em,
Be careful talking hella trash,
I get that compacted to a handful and pitch it back, at you,
Take that monkey shit off you embarrassing us, cuz,
Put the game back in perspective,
Niggas disrespecting it,
Suckas ain’t protecting it,
Just complaining about the state,
and under the pressure they break,
turning into the very thing that they hate.”

I like how Curren$y calls out artists who complain about the current state of the rap game but don’t do anything about it, or even worse become a part of the problem themselves!  After he’s done rapping, Curren$y references Master P by repeating “And we can make crack like this.”

Curren$y – “Yet Another Story”

On “Yet Another Story,” Curren$y flexes his storytelling skills while sharing the details of an interesting love affair over Ice Cube’s “Today Was A Good Day.”

“You remember when I told you about the basket player’s lady,
We took a break, but we been back on lately,
With me movin to NYC and homie being traded,
Secret rendezvous became more complicated,
Every weekend out the past two months,
She’s been flying me to Vegas and buyin me what I want,
Trees and kicks all on the bitch, I can’t front,
Monthly trips planed at the expense of her man,
She circle in that passenger pick up until I land,
But in the midst of the fuckin and gateway druggin,
Shawty done got stopped, the homie came up on something,
Bitch done forgot to sign out of her Twitter,
Now Pimpin fishin through all of our private DM’in,
Online history shows she’s been purchasing tickets,
From a credit card in his name he didn’t know existed.”

I like how Curren$y referred to smoking weed as “gateway druggin,” ha!  It was also cool to hear an artist rap about Direct Messages on Twitter.  I wonder how much of this track is true.

Curren$y – I Don’t Fucks With Em” (Featuring Nipsey Hussle and Wiz Khalifa)

Here’s the track Nipsey spoke about in our recent interview.

Neighborhood Nip spits one of my favorite lines off the mixtape with “Carmen Sandiego, where the hell on the Earth is he?/  Probably somewhere getting what’s synonymous with Curren$y.”  There were a few other clever weed references on the project, as was to be expected.

While on the topic of guest features, how sick would a Yelawolf verse sound on the “Monte Carlo Music” track?  It’s no secret that Yela feels strongly about his Boxframe Chevy!

Curren$y – “187 on a Beat”

Curren$y’s beat selection on this tape was quite impressive, as his flow fit in well over everything from brand new Gucci Mane to classic West Coast Gangsta shit.

He spits some cocky lines on “187 on a Beat” with:

“It’s 187 on,
Any beat get dropped Spitta steppin on,
Step into the booth, welcome to the terrordome,
You’re looking at the reason that she never home,
It’s like the weed smoke make pheromones,
Put it in the air let em know she good to go,
Like food in a bag at a drive up window,
Dude you a fag what you looking over here for…
A lot of boys paranoid, worried about Spitta,
Probably chokin’ on their blunts when they saw me on the television,
Know they love it, saying they ain’t fuckin with it,
Limewire, download, drag and click it,
Analyze it over and over, study my delivery,
Try to copy it and fail miserably.”

If you’re looking forward to more from Curren$y, watch his Twitter:@CurrenSy_Spitta, as he keeps it updated with new tracks.

Stream the whole Smokee Robinson project below, and be sure to check out the great samples on “Invincible Jets” and “Mazaltov.”