Wednesday 9/2: Lotto Savage—"2 Official" feat. BStakk
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the Atlanta rapper Lotto Savage.
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.
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the Atlanta rapper Lotto Savage. We’re joined by official Endless Scroll hip-hop contributor Michael Brooks.
Lotto Savage—"2 Official" feat. BStakk
Michael Brooks:
Atlanta rapper Lotto Savage first appeared on the scene back in 2015 with his guest verse on 21 Savage’s “Dirty K,” which apparently was all the proof that Epic Records needed to sign him to a deal (the two have since separated). That very next year, he even managed to score a minor hit of his own with the track “Trapped It Out”. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Lotto Savage was far from a household name even at the apex of his career, but it’s still surprising to me that his solo stuff never really made it too far off the ground. I mean, he raps pretty well, doesn’t he? And I know that being in that kind of proximity to 21 Savage doesn’t hold that much cache in 2020, the year of our Lord and Savior, but that kind of co-sign certainly warrants more than a bunch of singles I’ve never heard of and a four-year-old interview with DJ Vlad with less than 200,000 hits, doesn’t it? But thanks to my reverence for the WorldstarHipHop YouTube channel, a source I frequently seek out for my contributions to this newsletter, I’ve rediscovered the music of Lotto Savage, and much like running into an old friend from high school at the bar and sharing a couple of drinks and laughs together, we basically picked up right where we left off.
“2 Official,” which features a rapper named BStakk that I’ve never heard of before, is actually the second Lotto Savage song from this year that I’ve tried to cover for this newsletter. A couple of months back Lotto Savage dropped “Out The Van” and it’s one of a handful of songs I pitched to Eli but we ended up going with something else, which is totally fine, but it’s strange to realize that I’ve been practically running a one-man Lotto Savage street team this year without even recognizing it. The rapping on “2 Official” is good, although it’s certainly not something to write home about, but man oh man is that beat something to behold. For starters, there’s these flickering synths that glide across the track like a strobe light at some dance party with great drugs, leaving just enough space for this behemoth of an 808 to come in and just fucking rattle everything around them. It’s the kind of beat that I assume most rappers would gravitate towards in the studio: it’s interesting enough to jump out at you right away but there’s enough room for a rapper to decorate it with their flow. I have to give an honorable mention to the YouTube comment sections for both “2 Official” and “Out The Van,” which are filled with people who apparently were watching something on Gogoanime and ended up getting redirected to this music video, which is absolutely hilarious to me.
Eli Enis:
Outside of Michael’s work on the Lotto Savage street team (an institution the man should be thanking him for), I had never heard of this dude. I don’t actually remember what the song sounded like that I passed on for coverage, but if it weren’t for the beat on here then I’d probably shrug this one off, too. There’s nothing particularly memorable about Lotto’s by-the-numbers grittiness, and his pal BStakk is memorable for the wrong reasons. The dude has a distractedly squeaky voice and an unintelligible flow that goes beyond Young Thug kookiness and into eyebrow-raising silliness. He sounds like Fredro Star in that Eric Andre sketch where he raps after getting Novocain injected into his lips at the dentist. He sounds like 42 Dugg trying to stave off a Xanax slumber with caffeine-era Four Loko’s and just coming across as a slurring, overly caffeinated but still incoherent hanger-on. Go to bed, dude.
As a song, “2 Official” is equivalent to the subplot of a TV show where the side characters stumble into a briefcase of cash (this beat is worth at least half-a-mil in my book) and wastefully blow it all on one night of drinking. It’s fuckin’ epic while it’s happening, but you wake up and forget it all the next day. There’s nothing particularly lasting about Lotto’s delivery on here, none of his bars really stood out to me, and the hook is kind of hype but also feels a little lackluster compared to, again, one of the coolest fucking beats I’ve ever heard going off behind him. In some ways I wish the two goofballs would just pipe down so I can listen to this as an instrumental, or pull someone else onto this beat. 2 Chainz, for instance, would sound fucking amazing over this beat. Young Dolph would sound incredible on this beat. Honestly, Megan Thee Stallion would absolutely slay this beat. Someone who just drips liquid gold and couldn’t be pictured outside of their ritzy element, that’s who needs to be on this beat. Sadly, Lotto Savage and BStakk aren’t worthy.