WHO WATERS THE WILTING GIVING TREE ONCE THE LEAVES DRY UP AND FRUITS NO LONGER BEAR?

Album review

Through his cracked lens, Richmond rabble-rouser $ilkmoney makes clear that capitalism is the titular giving tree, dried up by one-sided take-and-take. And like most talented rap rantmasters, he has fun hitting his targets of derision, like on Who Waters the Wilting Giving Tree Once the Leaves Dry Up and the Fruits No Longer Bear?'s opener where he appears to blame the TSA for why he won't get laid tonight. Good luck pronouncing that one—the title is "PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCPOPIC(NOBODY)SILICOVOLCANOBONIOSIS"—and words like "telepathically," "coffee beans," and "galaxy" fly by at bpms as fast as anything he's ever done, like a doomsayer Twista or Aesop Rock approaching a brain hemorrhage.

$ilk compares himself to Ashford & Simpson and finesses "Tamagotchi" and "henchmen" into a repeated refrain on "WE SNUCK THE HAMMER IN THE TUNNEL AND DIN EEN NEED TO" And album centerpiece "PROLLY WOULDN'T BE HERE IF WE WOULDA BEEN KILLED THAT NIGGA KING BACH" excoriates disgraced Lovecraft Country actor Jonathan Majors at length in the lineage of disappointing men before pondering who programmed the AI rapper he just heard utter the n-word. (Can you tell he shares onetime collaborator Andre 3000's recent penchant for character-limit-breaking song titles?)

The man-on-the-street agitprop never gets academic or heady, though; at times it even recalls vintage Cash Money. $ilk is not above bars like "he rubs the lotion on his skin just to get them hoes again" or a succession of Juvenile-derived "hmm" pauses on "BIGFATJELLYDACHILIDAAAWG LUVAHLUVAH." And "NEVER TRUST A BITCH THA- *EXPLODES*" (somehow the easiest title here to recall verbatim) rides a bloopy late-'90s Mannie Fresh beat. Savor every assonance and internal rhyme in a line like "Love don't cost a thing except for everything I bought in exchange to facilitate it" from "FIRST I GIVE UP, THEN I GIVE IN, THEN I GIVE ALL." © Daniel Aaron/Qobuz