El Cousteau is a product of the District in each approach. On ‘Soiled Harry 2,’ he unpacks his difficult upbringing with a nuance absent from nationwide debate
A local of Washington, D.C., El Cousteau facilities the town on Soiled Harry 2, even when rapping about his journeys exterior of it.
Tyra Mitchell
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Tyra Mitchell
In 2017, the rapper GoldLink was lamenting a vanishing Chocolate Metropolis and doing his half to attempt to protect its tradition. His album from that spring, At What Price, handled Washington, D.C.’s native hallmarks like psychic landmarks in an effort to stave off the erasure he noticed encroaching, introduced on by the gentrification overtaking the world. “I really feel like we’re lengthy overdue for our story to be advised,” he advised The Washington Publish. “If it does not occur now, then every thing we had goes to be gone, and nobody will ever learn about it — it will be like a misplaced metropolis.”
I used to be desirous about this concept whereas listening to Soiled Harry 2, the brand new mixtape from D.C. rapper El Cousteau. Eight years later, GoldLink’s issues are much more legitimate, and but Cousteau’s rise seems like an affirmation that the town’s essence can by no means really be misplaced. Spend somewhat time together with his songs and it shortly turns into clear the place he is from and the way he takes that historical past with him. As his title impliesCousteau is an explorer in his music, a jetsetter and stay wire — “Spin world wide twice, got here again with a straight face,” he quips — however he is by no means too removed from house. He is on Bladensburg Highway from the primary to the fifteenth (“85 South“), and he is locked in from uptown to Wheeler Highway (“Nitro“). Listening to him rap, you get the sense that his passage is twofold: He’s bringing D.C. to all his bucket-list locations, and he’s gathering trinkets on the highway to carry house the tales they bear, the trip again at all times the extra essential one.
Cousteau typically sounds between locations, his verses animated and antsy as if wanting to get someplace, however objects in his rearview are nearer than they seem. On account of this time-dilated depth notion, he is simply as prone to reminisce about packing a two-tone chrome, compact .40 1911 in highschool as he’s to lavish in taking his girlfriend to Venice for the weekend, decked out in Celine. Getting the place you are going can imply leaving some issues behind, and on “Ballad of France,” from his 2024 breakthrough tape Merci, Non Merci, he raps about lacking his grandmother’s funeral whereas out on the highway, attempting to advance his profession: “I be unhappy once I miss y’all telephone calls ‘trigger I am distant from house now.” In a way, his verses really feel like an effort to resolve these connections, leaving voicemail recaps from inside his trajectory as he makes an attempt to repay his street-level training with a stamped passport.
Soiled Harry 2 instantly indicators the place Cousteau has been and the place he is headed. On the openerthe rapper’s voice is blustery as he notes that he’s addressed as “sir” in label conferences now. He is simply as brazen rapping about holding somebody at gunpoint, or excessive velocity chases, or his cousin coming house from the fed after six years. “You already know the place I am coming from / Rising up in that nook home,” he raps earlier than declaring, “I am a menace to society / I am a product of my setting / Grew up round n****s promoting dope, doing armed robberies,” the scene taking part in like a contemporary twist on the crooked native tales of Wayne “Silk” Perry and Rayful Edmond.
The times of these traffickers working round D.C., mythologized by crime docuseries like American Gangsterare gone, and but, in latest weeks, the District has been underneath a sort of home siege as the results of such a fantasy. On Aug. 11, by government orderthe Trump administration put native police underneath federal management, bringing in federal regulation enforcement from companies such because the U.S. Park Police, DEA, FBI, ATF and U.S. Marshals Service, with the said goal of cleansing up a “crime emergency.” “There will probably be no protected harbor for violent criminals in D.C.,” White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned in an announcement, including that the elevated presence was meant to guard harmless residents. (As many famous in response, violent crime in D.C. had been at a 30-year low.) There’s something putting about listening to a D.C. native rap about being a product of the town’s crime amid a militant anti-crime push, as an on-the-ground survey of the streets at present underneath scrutiny. In Soiled Harry 2, you possibly can hear what it is actually wish to stay with crime, to be taken by each the drama and actuality of it, to maneuver on from it, and to not let it sully your love for house.
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Cousteau, for his half, has been unambiguous about utilizing his music to unpack an advanced upbringing. “The complexities of life be so loopy generally, prefer it will get to the purpose the place the world be needing a motherf***** with a perspective that simply does not don’t have any bulls***,” he mentioned final November. “I ain’t about to offer you no gimmick, none of that s***. I’ll simply discuss to you about life. I’ll inform you my flaws and all that s***. … That very same honesty and empathy in my music helped me develop too.”
That mandate is obvious on Soiled Harry 2, as is the expansion. The mission feels uniquely urbane, stylish and worldly, with out shedding any of its homegrown appeal. Cousteau is a contemporary dandy with a fastidiously curated aesthetic, having modeled for Telfar and Wales Bonner and aligned himself with fellow trend killa A$AP Rocky. Creatively, he is fallen in with new-age sages of lo-fi hip-hop like Earl Sweatshirt and MIKE, summoning their approaches and palettes (compact music — 13 songs, 28 minutes — and busy, full-bodied loop manufacturing), however his flows are possessed by the distinctive run-on power of DMV road rap and have a aptitude for the flamboyant. The model generated by this fusion is a swanky, snappy sort of goon discuss, adrenalized but concentrated, verging on mumble rap. “This pen I obtained set up a way of life, comes absolutely furnished,” he raps on “Straight to It.” Few could make being a roughneck sound so positively pimped out.
At occasions, it could really feel like Cousteau is rapping particularly concerning the D.C. that the president is imagining. On “Words2LiveBy,” the Earl-featuring standout from Merci, Non Merci, he rapped, “I am in Northeast the place it is unsolved murders.” Soiled Harry 2’s “Quid Professional Quo” is marked by ruthlessness: “Really feel like everyone towards me and ours,” goes one bloody-eyed line. Pay nearer consideration, although, and you will hear somebody who has internalized the Darwinism of the hood. Drug cash helped his mother purchase his college garments, he explains. D.C. is not a spot he’s attempting to flee; his city-hopping adventures usually are not an outlet however an impact, the results of all his enterprising. He carries and is carried by his hustler’s spirit, and he makes the case for it quite plainly on “Rose Ave.“: “To afford the price of dwelling, that is what a n**** do crime for.”
However Soiled Harry 2 is about extra than simply getting it out the mud to stay within the lap of luxurious; it is about figuring out that house has instilled him with resolve, and that the journey bears all of the exhausting classes. “Lodge in Los Angeles, I am from the capital, fifteen minutes from the trenches,” he raps on “A Good Snort,” his murmurs slicing via the wailing pattern. On “Bergamot,” he is much more direct: “You need to be happy with me / What I did from what I used to be given / Replicate on my previous like that / Speak concerning the draw back prefer it’s the good things.” The music is all concerning the grind, working smarter, being spurred by doubters and reaping the rewards afforded by resilience — however on this second, he stews within the nuance for a second. Rappers have a approach of turning tragedy into triumph, and Cousteau’s evolution is offered as a byproduct of a glass-half-full outlook. The masks slips for simply an on the spot earlier than he snaps again to nonchalance: “No purpose to level any fingers / We can’t get into that s*** tonight.”
Soiled Harry 2 was launched on Sept. 10, the identical day that the emergency powers permitting for D.C.’s federal takeover expired. As of now, there was no vital withdrawal on the bottom: Armed Nationwide Guardsmen nonetheless stalk road corners and Metro stations, and ICE continues its patrols. Chocolate Metropolis is aware of aggressive policingand Cousteau’s perspective feels consultant of the fortitude displayed up and down Bladensburg and Wheeler Roads. When he turns again to the grind after his transient spell of ambivalent reflection, speaking concerning the draw back prefer it’s the good things, it feels nearly quintessentially D.C., particularly now. Identical to the town and its natives, Cousteau is perpetually, uneasily, soldiering on.
