The Big Tymers first formed in the late ’90s during Cash Money Records and the Hot Boys peak. A side project for label boss Baby “Birdman” Williams and super producer Mannie Fresh, the duo recorded five albums together. Birdman wasn’t a particularly skilled rapper but he was charismatic, and he had Fresh making some of the best beats of his career at that point. The duo split ways in 2004 for any number of reasons (it depends on who you ask), but eventually reunited for a one-off show in Chicago last year.
Now after 14 years, we have a new Big Tymers single titled “Desiigner Caskets” that is… just fine. It is almost exactly what you would expect a Big Tymer’s reunion song to sound like: fresh enough to feel current but absolutely dripping in nostalgia–so much so that Birdman literally raps his part from “Get Your Roll On” on it. And yet at the same time, when Mannie’s voice and the sound of a record kicks the song off, it’s hard not to get overwhelmed. Mannie rapping “note around his neck saying get right with the law” will linger in the brain for the rest of the week. The song is fun. It never reaches the highs they hit during the late ’90s and early 2000s, when they were doing donuts in parking lots and rapping about other people’s wives being their baby mamas, but damned if it isn’t just nice being reminded of that time. Listen below.
