Bronson's New York is one of loud arguments keeping entire apartments awake, exotic smells seeping out into hallways, thick accents and thin walls, the tug-of-war between assimilation and the preservation of old world roots. The most harrowing cut might be 'Thug Love Story 2012', where Bronson spins a tale of 'young love/ But we thought it was eternity/ Raw sex/Never thought about paternity.' It ends up with diapers being flung and assault and battery charges being beat. He raps from all three perspectives, taking special glee in his absurd portrait of Silk, aka Montel (one 'L'), a pinky-ringed, Henny-swilling pimp, sporting lizard-skin boots and green suits, with 'eight bitches look like they straight from the Alaskan blizzard.' There have been a million songs that cover similar terrain, but Bronson boasts his own brand of gonzo humor, subtle pathos, and specificity. Take 'Hookers at the Point', a triptych of pimp, ho, and john, interwoven with samples from the 2002 documentary of the same title. Sculptures of Bronson's body are out in Nagano, he smuggles cheese in baby bags, sometimes his only friends are drugs and cannoli. Rather than mimic Ghostface's trademark vocal exaggerations, Blue Chips-era Bronson mines from the same concepts that made Ghost great: bodega slang, sleazy narratives, childhood flashbacks, and bizarre allusions. What's weird is that he did this by becoming even more like Ghostface Killah, going so far as to sample 'Apollo Kids' on 'Tapas'. He went from promising character whose music always seemed on the brink of making you turn it off in favor of Supreme Clientele, to one of the most hilarious and creative writers in rap. But at some point over the last six months, Bronson made the leap. Admittedly, that's not entirely different from what he does now. There was promise but the only thing that made truly set him apart from the crowded field of New York revivalists was his ability to articulate the differences between Canadian bacon and prosciutto. bon appétit.īut when the 27-year old of Albanian ancestry uploaded 'Shiraz' and 'Imported Goods' to YouTube two years ago, the Flushing native was little more than a Ghostface manqué, a chubby, Knicks Jersey-sporting, blunt smoking chef, spitting slang over formalist soul loops and break beats.

Sautee the intricate rat-a-tat patterns of Kool G Rap, the stoned perversion of the Beatnuts, and the super-fly vivid laser eye-guide specifics of Ghostface and. He blends that with epicurean inclinations- a dirty sex and esoteric food obsession suggestive of Henry Miller scripting episodes of No Reservations for Anthony Bourdain. 5'7', 260, ginger-bearded, bowling ball-built, Bronson has the swaggering confidence of the original overweight lover, Heavy D. Bronson is Homer Simpson staring into the mirror and seeing a chiseled Adonis. He speaks Polish out in London, with a face just like a young John F. But Bronson doesn't ask for his French to be pardoned. The Ghostface similarity is the arrière-pensée precluding people from joining the Bronsolino bandwagon.

Baby blue action bronson album cover