Compton rapper YG has shared a bonus cut available on the Best Buy version of his major-label debut, My Krazy Life, which hits shelves this week. Set to DJ Mustard’s typically spare production — gun-cocks, piano, Pac-Man death bleeps — “459” is a trunk-rattling slow-roller in SoCal’s finest G-funk tradition. YG reflects on life on the sun-dappled mean streets (“Grimy, sheisty, gritty, that’s how I had to be”) while Natasha Mosley rides shotgun, musing about “that Bompton life.” Her tale is nothing if not somber (“I didn’t want to fuck him but I did it just to get by”), but she’s as steady as Mustard’s booming 808 kicks when she sings, “Gotta respect my struggle, understand my hustle / It’s nothin’ but a G-thing, baby.” (As The Fader points out, 459 is California’s police code for burglary.)
All of which is to say it’s well in keeping with the tone of My Krazy Life, which SPIN’s Brandon Soderburg calls “a peculiar party record with a whole lot at stake,” a record “in the vein of Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, with a developed, knotty and, ultimately, deeply moral narrative.”
Last night, YG also brought his party to Jimmy Kimmel Live. Accompanied by DJ Mustard, and performing in front of an oversized “Bompton” ball cap, YG delivered a one-two punch in the form of a “Who Do You Love” and “My Hitta” (the clean version of his “My Nigga”), with Jeezy jumping on stage for the latter. Some have called the performance awkward, but c’mon, this is Kimmel — how ratchet did you expect it to get?
