The late April sun would have you believe it’s summer already, and the urge to put away the Northface and rock nothing but shorts and basketball jerseys until mid-September is great. But in the back of my mind is a caution not to get too excited, that it’s just a teaser, that the sun will go away and it will look and feel like December again. It’s a guard against disappointment, of expectation not being met, the kind of wall people put up on first dates and before job interviews so as not to get hurt when the astounding successes of fantasy give way to the underwhelming truths of mundane realness.
As alluded to in this week’s Members Only column, KD‘s G-Fluid (get it at his bandcamp) is excellent, in part for its lush celebration of summer with one eye toward the withering, colorless death of fall. For every moment of blowin’ money fast there is an acknowledgment that all wells eventually run dry. These caveats reveal both a guarded optimism and a conscious battle to erase negativity from his being, making for the best-sounding moments of sunny nihilism you’ll hear banging out of speakers all summer.
G-Fluid boasts front-to-back sultry production with soul, including a couple from go-to country rap concocter Burn One, but mostly serves as a tour-de-force for B. Kirk, who contributes many highlights but none better than personal new anthem “Come & Kick It.” Beginning with a child’s cutely inappropriate question of “What’s up with them hoes tonight?”, the album’s third track bangs along without a care in the world as KD singularly spits about green, lean and clean cars. It’s one of the most effortless and joyous moments of the project but is not without blips of tough times on the horizon. “I’m tryna stay legal but they tell me crime pays,” he raps in his flow akin to that of fellow Alabamian Rich Boy. “And cuz I’m living paid I’m feeling heat from DEA.”
Listening to the rest of G-Fluid, it’s apparent KD doesn’t actively seek negativity like rapping counterparts who are enamored with the guns and violence; it just finds him, no matter how hard he’s running from it, as unwanted baggage that comes with a life of success and excess. He’d much rather party and bullshit than start bullshit or finish what many G’s find necessary on “Dope Game,” another soulful track from B. Kirk. Rapping about his foray into dirty money, KD recalls a partner without a shared business sense and who wasn’t “real.” He continues to work with this partner even though he has all the markings of a snitch, and goes so far as to bail him out of jail “knowing that his ass was gon’ squeal.” KD is hardened but not heartless, ever conscience of the cost of his good times on the horns-laden “Juice”: “If the evil root is money, if I get a lot, does that mean that I’m the Devil’s homie?” The incoming bombast of the chorus overwhelms his quiet answer of, “I don’t know.”
Throughout G-Fluid the Birmingham product wants to erase his apprehensions but finds them inescapable, whether through “Running Away” or simply “Runnin’.”Over wistful strings with a tinge of melancholy, he admits, “Man, I keep runnin’ through these hoes and runnin’ through this money, knowin’ one day that it’s gon’ catch up to me.” All good things come to an end and it’s just a matter of enjoying the present without letting a mournful eye to a less-enjoyable future blow the buzz. Or maybe it is this knowledge of browner pastures ahead that leads to a fully-lived life, one taking advantage of present fruits while they are ripe knowing they will soon be rotten. Either way, G-Fluid is a triumph, one that should have KD optimistic for his future without concern for what let-downs may lie ahead.