Buffalo’s underexposed rap talent is often overshadowed by the city’s insatiable appetite for hot wings and Bills football. In the media, that’s what we’re known for. But not today. This week the City of Good Neighbors was gifted with Donald “L-Biz” Foreman’s music video for “Simmer Down,” a bouncy hip hop rhyme-a-long with a little more attitude than the Fresh Prince was permitted to produce.
“Simmer Down” is Will Smith pre-upper echelon, the song he was writing verses to while he was still keeping it real in Philly. L-Biz’s observational humor style is what’s cradling a lens zooming in and out at the same time. He takes punches at mocking people who appear to lead double lives online, alleged scammers living up on social media what they make efforts to evade in real life: “Say your life is picture perfect, you are no Monet, you got no money, while you’re stuntin’ on your I.G. Social media got you thinkin’ you livin’ lively.” There is no substitution for the real thing, which is a point emphatically made by iRoc later on as she describes Instagram models as “hollering pretty gang but you’re pretty lame.” But isn’t this what this self-anointing culture teaches us? Worship thyself or perish? Seems like a survival tactic to me. Maybe it is, because we all engage in it. The song’s versifiers aren’t even immune to it. iRoc goes on to lend more of her swag: “Boys on my line like a barber on the forehead.” We all think our stuff doesn’t stink. Some of us just have the artistic credentials to back it up, and iRoc and L-Biz definitely do.
Post by Jessica Brant
