Check your favorite music blog today, tomorrow, or yesterday and chances are you’ll get word of a upcoming artist trying to make it in the industry. Every DJ is co-signing a rapper in hopes of showcasing their A&R skills, furthering his career and potentially securing that illusive record executive spot. With a stream of mixtapes large enough to drown in, finding an act that peaks interest like Stan Ipcus is rare. Upon the initial listening of ‘Bachelor Party’ Stan seems like another one dimensional rapper whose material will never move past the shallow pool of drugs, sex, and the ever popular ‘swagger’. Multiple listens reveals that while he never moves onto any deeper subjects he can make a listen-able mixtape.
Mixtapes give artists a venue to explore every avenue of their musical abilities without catering to a label or outside party that may object to their material. Stanley uses this freedom liberally, building upon tracks from artists as diverse as Amy Winehouse, Fergie, and the Arctic Monkeys. The standard issue remixes are supported by the appearance of Stan rapping over live bands and live performances that translate surprisingly well. With ample time to spotlight his lyrics and flow Stan fails to take full advantage of the opportunities. The amount of topics Stan covers in his lyrics is limited, but the style of his flow is even more limited. He rarely breaks away from the comfort zone of his flow, which is a direct decedent of the New York rap scene. Although he outlines a stencil on most of his tracks with his flow, his beat selection is great moving the mixtape along smoothly. Even with 25 tracks clocking in at just over an hour the mixtape never feels bloated. The songs are sequenced in a way that feels more cohesive than most rappers albums.
Stan deserves props for not following trends for the sake of appeal. Although props are due for not recording the obligatory southern track, their taken away for including the obligatory beef track. The final bonus song titled ‘The Great White Hope’ is directed at Asher Roth, one of the only other up and coming white rappers. It’s hard to believe Stan would choose to go ahead with an attack on Asher after considering the risk to reward ratio. If he succeeds he’s moved his career one rung ahead of another artist whose career isn’t even a couple of steps ahead of his on the ladder. Even if he succeeds, he still fails with the fact that the beef immediately comes off as corny.
With southern rappers having a stranglehold on rap right now the East Coast and Underground rap scene need a new voice to represent them more than ever. Stan Ipcus could be the next big thing for this minority. ‘Bachelor Party’ shows that there is someone who still cares to make a type of music that most record labels won’t recognize as viable. Today fans of this music could care less if their great hope is white or not.
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[...] Buzzafied Bachelor Party Review [...]
[...] type of thing, was that he was marketed wearing that John Belushi Animal House COLLEGE sweatshirt, the same one I had just recently switched the letters to IPCUS and made my Bachelor Party mixtape album cover. I always wanted to do that, and figured it would work perfect [...]