Admittedly, I wasn’t hip to Spank Nitti James until he spearheaded one of the best posse cuts of last year. Probably because I’ve been ducking Hit-Boy beats since King’s Disease 3. But I’ve become a fan of his ability to balance heavy-hearted life lessons and reckless credit card swiping worthy of BlueBucksClan. On “LDO”—a thumping yet melancholic return to form for Hit-Boy—Spank splits the difference, preparing to turn himself in for an upcoming jail sentence by recounting all the cool shit that just started coming his way: iced-out Jesus pieces, a new workout routine (lots of burpees), courtside seats at Ice Cube’s Big3 basketball league, and the ability to buy any gift his kid is asking for. With his knack for depicting entire scenes in a bar or two, Spank has me rooting for him to get back to his life of throwing dollar bills at strip joints like how I wanted Boobie to beat that knee injury and make it back onto the football field in Friday Night Lights.
