A Shot of Incilin

Whatever happened to Papoose? When I had a internship interview at Universal, and they asked me what up-and-coming rapper I was checking for, I was like Papoose and Saigon were the future. The white dude behind the desk started laughing; “Papoose? What kind of name is that?” I told him to remember that name because Papoose was going to be somebody. That was in 2004.

In ‘09? Well… the Nacirema Dream is over.

I had such high hopes for the kid; Papoose was the definition of “beast mode” and yet he could be thoughtful. He didn’t have much sense of structure or melodies, but he was a spit fire MC. Plain and simple, he knows how to rap.[1] Plus he is the type of guy who doesn’t have time for fuckery. He would never act a fool like many of his mixtape counterparts. In ‘06 Papoose was killing verses while Tru Life was hacking into Jim Jones’ Myspace page.

Granted, Papoose had considerable success. He got props from all types of rappers (plus praise from rap godfather, Rakim), he spit the best verse on the “Touch It Remix” (A top 20 hit), got a XXL cover, and of course in ‘06 he got his memorable 1.5 million dollar deal. But in the end, Papoose will go down as a flash in the pan. He’s pretty much Canibus 2.0; a guy who can rap his ass off but nothing else. Saddest part is, he doesn’t rap that well anymore.

Throughout his run I always wondered if he would exhaust himself on the mixtapes to get his deal and then have nothing left for his album. I had the same worries for guys like Banks and Cassidy and then both their albums were trash.[2] But his album didn’t even ship vinyl. He didn’t even get a chance to put out a wack album! And after about a year of wack mixtapes in ‘07, he got off Jive (Seriously, Jive? You should have seen A&R hell coming).

Once he got off Jive, strange things started happening. Papoose pretty much became a mixtape rapper who always got involved in the type of goon shit that makes rapper look like idiots. He punched Fat Joe in the face, or didn’t. He somehow got punched or stabbed or something, or didn’t. He got Murder Mook shot or something, or he didn’t. He tried to run up on Max B. He fell in love with Remy and tried to bust her out of jail, or didn’t. Oh wait, he did do that last one.

Now, with every crazy situation that came up he handled it as well as he could (He didn’t provoke the Joe situation, that was ThisIs50). Take for example how he handled the Mook situation, he didn’t go making videos talking shit and pointing guns like some retard. Instead, he spit one of the most underrated diss tracks of the last few years, “Who Shot Ya?” People probably stopped listening after 2 minutes of Biggie quoting (I almost did too) but dude goes off in the second half of the track by logically and mathematically breaking down inconsistencies in Mook’s story. And that’s what always excited me about Papoose: Finally there was a rapper who could spit in a cohesive manner and not a slapdash one. So what if it’s easy to take apart a story as phony as Mooks? To do it in rhyme form? That takes skills.

Skills, character, intelligence. Those are all things Papoose had. But not anymore. I hear he’s trying to reinvent himself. Well, I wish him all the best luck in that endeavor, and if his album ever comes out I’ll be sure to check for it. But without an album, without a deal, without some real spithotfiyah type shit, I won’t be checking for dude as often. He had a pretty good run, but now it’s over. It’s only fitting that his latest mixtape is titled “21 Gun Salute.”

[1] Yeah, I know no ones like rapping anymore. Sue me.
[2] I still worry for Joe Budden’s “Padded Room” and Saigon’s “Greatest Story Never Told”