Boozy all-nighters at Queens strip clubs, a lifetime’s worth of thirsty DMs, maybe a little tricking on the side. This is Bully, a hangout R&B mixtape by soft-spoken loverboy 2300 that’s full of jacked beats and self-produced remixes pulling from pining ’90s soul and pop charts past and present. Hosted by DJ Bandsome Will, doing a pretty good vintage DJ Clue impression, Bully is a low-stakes, boys-night-out blur. Scribbled into less than 30 minutes of half-completed songs and slick-tongued freestyles is a story of tryna’ get laid in the deep outer boroughs of New York in your twenties. The sample-heavy production and girls, girls, girls mentality will draw comparisons to Cash Cobain and Chow Lee’s “sexy drill,” but 2300’s sound is gentler and less outrageous. He’s more about the details of the chase than the fucking, though there is plenty of that, too.
As a producer first and foremost, 2300—raised in Laurelton, a residential area of Queens a short drive from Long Island—started out cooking up beats for NYC drill stars like DThang, Sleepy Hallow, and Pop Smoke, as well as contributing a track to Chlöe Bailey’s solo debut In Pieces. I didn’t know he sang until this summer when I saw him open for Harlem’s R2R Moe at Baby’s All Right in Williamsburg. The intimate venue was shoulder-to-shoulder and he took the stage with a nervous blush. Hyped up by his friends, he busted out a hushed ballad called “Leg of My Life” without much help from the backing track. Loaded up with New York-specific lingo and a cloudy atmosphere informed by The-Dream, it’s been one of my favorite R&B songs of the year ever since.
The best stuff on Bully builds off “Leg of My Life” with low-key speak-sing melodies and calm beats that seem like they would be in a Morris Chestnut rom-com if not for the jittery drums. On “She Ain’t Rlly Like Dat SMH,” his casual vocals curl around the slow groove as he’s gutted to learn that his new crush isn’t a freak: “I like hood girls, I like women knowing that they could throw it anywhere.” In his lyrics he tends to admit things other guys would be too cool to mention. “I’m a trick baby you don’t gotta trick me,” he sings on “She Wanna Go Meet Kelz,” then rewinds the line a few times to hammer home the point. He also spices up his flow by sucking his teeth between bars, a stylistic quirk that helps make up for the fact that his singing won’t blow you away.
Possibly because of those vocal limitations, 2300 seems hesitant to fully commit to the hip-hop soul sound he’s grazing against. He tries to play it off like he’s not trying that hard with annoyingly unfinished tracks like “Crash Da Whip,” while the tape’s weakest songs (“Highlight Room,” “Botelle”) veer toward “sexy drill,” an unnecessary safety net. But not every R&B artist needs to have climbed the ranks of their church choir to be considered good. His everyman smooth-talk is compelling whether he’s yearning like he’s signed to LaFace in the mid ’90s on the way-too-short “Dey Don’t Know” or lustful like he’s trying to decide who to ask for a lapdance on the club-ready “Chat.” His sample-based beats have a knack for opening up unexpected crevices (notably, the tick-tocking percussion of “Problem”) while keeping the energy light and unserious: just right for this tipsy, game-spitting New York mood piece.
