On This Day in 2012, Joey Bada$$ Released a Mixtape That Would Change His Life Forever
· Vice
New York hip-hop was in an interesting space back in 2012. The stars of the 90s became veterans in the game, and the South was the mass cultural export. The mecca was looking for its next great hope. A$AP Rocky seemed to fit the mold, but he didn’t make the traditional East Coast frequency. Instead, he took inspiration from Harlem, Houston, and the Florida underground scene alike. It wasn’t until Joey Bada$$ and Pro Era came into the fold that New York had artists pushing the Golden Age again.
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All of it started with 1999, which released on this day 14 years ago. The mixtape saw a 17-year-old kid resurrect classics from Lord Finesse, MF DOOM, and J. Dilla, and not sound out of place. It was a project for every teenager blasting boom-bap beats through the school hallways, and for skaters who loved the classics but still had a wild, youthful energy.
Additionally, it made underground stars out of Joey Bada$$, Capital Steez, and CJ Fly. Steez in particular dazzled on “Survival Tactics” with a verse that rap fans still marvel at today. “It’s like we’ve been content with losin’/And half our students fallen victim to the institution,” he raps. “Jobs are scarce since the Scientific Revolution/And little kids are shootin’ Uzis ’cause it’s given to ’em.”
Joey Bada$$ Released ‘1999’ on This Day in 2012
Critics were naturally in love with the Golden Age devotion from Joey and the rest of Pro Era. Journalist Felipe Delerme was especially taken aback at the specificity with which the Brooklyn rapper wielded NY nostalgia. “For all his ‘old New York’ posturing, though, he’s a prodigious rapper,” he wrote of Joey Bada$$ for Pitchfork. “One who could have guested on a revered proving ground like the now defunct Stretch and Bobbito radio show, only to have his freestyle dubbed continuously from cassette to cassette.”
Tom Breihan echoed a similar sentiment for Stereogum. “What confounds me is that a high school kid from Flatbush is making music this era-specific, and, more importantly, that he’s so good at it,” he shared.
However, Christopher Weingarten was a lot more skeptical. He briefly wrote for Spin Magazine that Joey Bada$$ gets too comfortable in the era it curbs from so loyally. “Too often the lounge-iest in the Lyricist Lounge,” he dismissively argued.
Ultimately, though, 1999 is the result of a 17-year-old who loved to rap in ciphers with his friends. He told Interview Magazine at the time that he wouldn’t always write down his raps. “I started freestyling more often because I thought it would be necessary to develop that skill,” Joey Bada$$ said. “Being that people are saying I’m going [the] places I’m going, just me preparing myself. Eventually, that turned into not writing at all, just saving the same couple of bars in my head, doing it over, and adding on.”
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