Top Shelf Premium Vintage Presents: Your Old Droog & DJ J Hart's 1990's-reminiscent "Off Top Freestyle" (Your Old Droog Records)
Let's just go ahead and be completely frank here, Jewish-America's biggest "claim to fame," if you will, is undoubtedly either Frat-Rap turned Conscious Hip-Hop posse, Beastie Boys or Adam Sandler's slightly-dated four-part "Chanukah Song" series; until the fateful second night of Hanukkah 2015... when Broooklyn-bred Ukrainian-American emcee Your Old Droog (Russian for "friend") unleashed his latest haphazardly-released non-album loosie, "Off Top Freestyle." Recorded in collaboration with Lower East Side vintage clothing store and quasi-recording studio @topshelfpremium, DJ J Hart-produced "Off Top" was filmed directly onto VHS tape at what would appear to be a retrofitted replica 1990's Modell's; "somehow, Your Old Droog managed to walk through a Modell's fitting room and ride a time warp back to the Clinton years when we were all playing Number Munchers, watching Snick, and eating 3-D Doritos," okayplayer nostalgically reminisced about director Joshua Scott's grainy wobble-filled presentation. "Off Top" is just the latest in a series of surprisingly strong and seemingly cast-off loosies released in the wake of Your Old Droog's back to back 2015 EP's, hard-hitting KINISION and his proper "debut," The Nicest.
"17-45 is my demo; you still on that, "please listen to my demo?" Holdin' up traffic on the FDR Drive, they wanna hear my music - I'm like, "check the archives." Gimme a thumb drive, I still won't play it. My joint dumb live, you still gon' play it... think you could live my life? You wish, you don't even do ish. I start at 6:00, get off around 2ish. Savin' money like I'm Jewish (You are Jewish)," Droog ferociously rhymes throughout "Off Top," which somehow manages to bring the Hanukkah-centric theme full circle. Top Shelf Premium promises to upload additional volumes of its self-described "brand new series of exclusive freestyles shot on VHS," while Your Old Droog is seemingly still hard at work on the album-length follow-up to his critically-acclaimed Your Old Droog EP-LP; having released nearly an entire album's-worth of material this year exclusively on Soundcloud that including a Jonwayne "Listen" Remix, a laughable 5K T*tty Mix of The Weeknd & Kanye's chart-topping "Tell Your Friends," his ingenious Seinfeld-theme flipping "Basketball & Seinfeld," and a gaggle of dusty previously vaulted freestyles.