Wednesday 3/3: Duke Deuce—"FELL UP IN THE CLUB"
WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUCK. It’s Duke Deuce day, ya’ll.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc. Three days of the week are free but you can get access to all five weekly posts by subscribing for $5/month via Substack or $2/month via our Patreon.
WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUCK. It’s Duke Deuce day, ya’ll.
Duke Deuce—"FELL UP IN THE CLUB"
Michael Brooks:
As we draw closer to the one year mark of life in quarantine, Duke Deuce is the only semblance of hope that I’ve got left. The vaccine rollout has been nothing short of a disaster and we still don’t have any idea when or if we’re ever going to receive a third stimulus check, but thankfully we have Duke Deuce, who’s done more for me than the entirety of the Biden administration to make me believe that this year will be a good one. On “Soldiers Steppin,” Duke Deuce blends together Three 6 Mafia with Old era Danny Brown for one of the year's best songs, rapping “2020 fucked up so we back up on that crunk shit”, which I think is an idea that we can all get behind.
Ever since I was a child I’ve always loved crunk music. I can remember playing Madden 2004 and getting incredibly amped to “Never Scared” by Bone Crusher, and if you fast forward a couple years and we have the Hype Williams-directed visuals for “Snap Yo Fingers” that certainly had a profound effect on me. When I was living in southern Illinois back in 2014, I even went and saw the Ying Yang Twins in concert, which was an amazing experience, and also the moment when I realized that crunk will never die. When I used to go to church they would talk about how God is like the air we breathe, even though we can’t see it it’s all around us, and I think that’s a beautiful way to think about crunk. To take that another step further, you could even say that the music video for “Crunk Ain’t Dead” is the resurrection, with Duke Deuce coming back to life as the savior of all things crunk.
Duke Nukem, the latest from Duke Deuce, pays homage to crunk of the early 2000s while still finding a way to push the genre even further. It’s high energy and incredibly fun, like a case of sparks rigged to an explosive device. “Fell Up In The Club” is one of the best songs on the project, as well as the perfect showcase of all of the things that Duke Deuce does so well. The track flips “Paper Chase” by EP, which was a local hit in Memphis over a decade ago, into a chest-beating thumper. As soon as you hear that signature “WHATTHAFUUUCCCKKK” adlib you know that you’re in safe hands, and Duke Deuce breezes over the beat like a knife through butter. The song also features an excellent verse from A$AP Ferg, who definitely harkens back to the Trap Lord days to deliver some of his best bars in a long time. As a 40 year old man living inside of a 27 year old’s body I completely understand that this crunk revival might not be as exciting for you as it is for me, but just let me have this one.
Eli Enis:
I’m not going to be able to match Michael’s excitement for this, but I’m definitely way more onboard the Duke Deuce train after hearing Duke Nukem. I remember seeing a clip from the “Crunk Ain’t Dead” video littering the timeline last year and I appreciated Duke Deuce as a sort of novelty act. But at the time, I wasn’t really thrilled to hear someone in hip-hop shamelessly reviving a style that had been dated as hell for well over a decade. Although I have plenty of nostalgia for the Lil Jon hits of yore, one of the main reasons hip-hop continues to be so thrilling to me is that it’s not stuck in the past like rock is, there’s so much genuine inventiveness and innovation left in the broader genre’s tank.
However, I like that on “Fell Up In The Club” and many other songs on Duke Nukem, Duke isn’t trying to deliver an exact replicate of a Three Six Mafia song from 2002. The treble-blasted snares and cheesy gun sounds are here, but the song also has a super deep 808 bassline and a repetitive groove to it that also draws heavily from 2010s trap. It’s kind of the midway point between Whole Lotta Red, Migos, and the Yin Yang Twins, and I think that’s a super cool lineage to draw from. Obviously, these songs are all about the 40-fueled energy and over-the-top hype-ness more than anything else, and Mr. Deuce delivers on that front tenfold. WHAT THE FUUUUUUUCK are you doing if you’re not bumping Duke Deuce?