Running Playz - Freedom
Artwork - Running Playz
Truth be told, I love rap more than anything. It was the first thing I fell in love with, so much so that I wanted to be a rapper, and although I hung that career up a long time ago (don’t get it twisted, I’ll still pull the bars out), it taught me to love a lot more than just hip-hop and it’s culture. It taught me to love producing, which in turn led me to love the soul and jazz music I was sampling. I had started listening to “older music” more than anything in the last 20 years, with genres I had never even heard before. It taught me respect for other mediums and helped shape my view of the world. Rap really did a lot more than just intrigue a white boy from Nashville.
“I ain’t make it till my dawgs all paid, money need it all ways, running playz till I get to the top,”
I have never met, spoken to, or heard a Freedom song, but this one will put him on my map for the foreseeable future. The North Carolina-based rapper debuted the video for his new single “Running Playz”, a powerful piece of street scripture on his “eighteen years in the making” that hopefully can lead the way. Not only for himself, but for his people. Once again, Halv makes a return on the small screen, with assistance from VXCHEL, to help create a visual piece that feels so close to home. Cards in the den, front porch chillin’; maybe it’s because I’m from the South, but those sorts of moments feel so nostalgic and peaceful. Like old times.
For the song itself, the production sets the ambiance. That hazey, sort of slowed vocal combined with the speedy pacing and packed punch of the drums, is a nice balance of two different moods, coming together to set the stage for Freedom to speak. Although seemingly soft in his tone, some of the things he says in this song really make me wonder what all he’s been through. I’ve probably ran this song back seven separate times just listening to the lyrics, because at every turn, there’s a new bar, new gem, or new perspective that makes me pause and rewind to hear it again. In the last ten years or so, I’ve really shifted away from having a hyperfocus on the lyrics and learning to enjoy music and those feelings that come with it, and this track has seemingly done. This beat is so emotionally gripping, and tying that in with the story of the hometown kid trying to make it, along with a visual that feels like a place you’ve grown up. It’s masterful.
I said a lot in the beginning about what rap taught me, but the best thing it taught me was confidence in myself, and I still carry some of that rap confidence with me. It’s a different type of confidence. From the outside, it looks like it’s completely based in fiction, almost like you’re lying to yourself. On the inside, it really comes from a place of “At the end of the day, I’m my biggest fan, no matter what.” You need that blind trust in yourself.
I just hope we’re all paid at the end of it.
Watch the video for “Running Playz”
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