"Rump" on the POW Best Rap Songs of 2023

“Sample drill” isn’t a genre as much as it is a process. Take familiar samples, speed them up a few BPM, and pair them with the drum pattern du jour: Jersey club kick drums that stagger into syncopation in the last quarter of each bar. Bronx-born 25-year-old Cash Cobain has dubbed himself “sample god” for his ability to flip songs into new beats within 20 minutes, and his resume has grown from collaborations with local heroes like Shawny Binladen to credits on Drake’s latest album.

His producer tag “And this beat from Cash, not from YouTube,” alludes to his ubiquity with a hint of irony; all his beats start as lossy mp3 rips from YouTube. Despite the ballooning industry of investment firms hoping to maximize their returns via yet another rework of “Genius of Love,” Cobain and his peers would rather flip now, clear later if a single song blows up enough to warrant real money and legal attention.

Cash Cobain’s single “Rump” is a simple song about ass with a delightfully old-fashioned title. Rapping at the top of his register, Cobain wants a woman that makes him speak in onomatopoeia, like he’s so flabbergasted by her cheeks that he can’t help but think out loud.

It’s an appropriately bottom-heavy beat: he plucks the eerie harmonies from Jai Paul’s “BTSTU,” possibly inspired by a similar sample on Drake’s 2011 track “Dreams Money Can Buy” or Paul’s buzzy debut performances this spring. Cobain’s trebly vocals dissipate like Elf bar vapor amidst the kick drums and fuzzy bass. He’s boasted in interviews that his music “is about ho-ing, I just love being a ho,” but here he’s persistently paranoid that the girls flocking to him might sell him out to his opps.

Frequent collaborator Chow Lee makes the Eros/Thanatos connection explicit by emptying a clip and climaxing in back-to-back bars, his voice slathered in harsh effects like the garish furry beanie he wears in the video. It’s a new generation of “Party and Bullshit”. I wonder how someone will flip it into something new in a few years.

Originally published on POW.