Album Review: STUCK by Nickelus F

4 out of 4 stars

A brilliant and minimalist masterpiece by an unsung legend.

STUCK (2018) — Nickelus F (aka Petey)

Van Gogh said, “I can’t help it if my paintings do not sell but one day people will realize they are worth more than the cost of the paint”. On STUCK’s ferocious album closer “Horace Hardbody the Statue”, Nickelus F incredulously bellows, “I’m gonna milk my talents until I’m obese / How I’m kickin’ shit like this and niggas so asleep?!”.

Both artists were masters in their field of work. Both watched their careers go by with no public recognition or acknowledgement. Both will be looked upon by history as legends.

Even on /r/hiphopheads, a place where nearly one million rap aficionados hang out to discuss, dissect, and critique rap music, the thread introducing Nickelus F’s STUCK was met with confusion turned to hype (“Yoooooo wtf this dudes fucking fire”, “”Holy Fuck this is hype!”, “Never heard of this guy before I saw this thread, two tracks into the album and I’m already a fan.”). In other words, even people who ought to know about Nickelus F don’t know.

It’s been nearly two decades since the Richmond, Virginia native made his bones against hundreds of rhyming foes at The Source Unsigned Hype Emcee Battle. Yet even a decade later in 2009 he was still being mentioned on lists like Complex’s “Ten Most Underrated New Rappers”. Since then another ten years have gone by and little has changed (a one-off Drake feature and rumors of ghostwriting aside). The man has been humbly tucked away consistently releasing fiery mixtapes and albums to a world that just doesn’t give a damn.

“STUCK is not about anything in particular so much as it’s the crystallization of one man’s existence.”

All of the emotions that come with unappreciated talent can be felt on STUCK: the hunger for recognition, the self-confidence in his abilities, and a dejected acceptance that he may never get his due. Thus, STUCK is not about anything in particular so much as it’s the crystallization of one man’s existence. In this case, a rapper old enough to be past his physical prime grinding his heart out in a hazy studio while trying to raise good children and avoiding the rest of society’s bullshit.

Most rappers eventually settle into a voice: a persona or character that they access repeatedly through which their rhymes are delivered. Consider Curren$y’s lazy, high-as-a-kite, conversational drawl or Danny Brown’s maniacal, hyena-like vocalizations. A more obvious example are the countless droves of post-Cuban Linx gangsta rappers that do little but talk about their prolificness with large-bootied women and proficiency at using firearms to murder their foes in the drug game. Over time, this reliance on a single mode of delivery becomes a rapper’s brand. It can also devolve into a crutch, becoming a dull formulaic caricature they can’t break away from.

Nickelus F aka Sweet Petey (instagram.com/nickelusf)

On STUCK, Nickelus F has no such issues. He is impressively versatile, always employing a flow and cadence that rides and complements the beat, whether he’s dropping apathetically monotone punchlines on album opener “Sleazie Wonder” (“I’ll slap you with the biscuit for thinking it’s all gravy”): or cooing, almost singing, and really feeling himself on “Mids” (“Hop out the Buick feeling regal / the strain on me is medical the pistol is illegal / that thang get so damn juicy how she grip me with the Kegel”: one can almost see a smile on his face here, two-stepping to the beat in the vocal booth).

On what is sure to be the most accessible song on the album, the hilariously-titled “Trill Burr”, Nickelus jams not one but three flows into a single 3-minute track. He does this so smoothly, in one instance cramming enough syllables between bars to rival Busta, that it shines as his most boastful moment on the record. He does it just to prove a point, just because he can, and it becomes indisputable that Nickelus F is a master craftsman at work.

Despite the impressive dexterity of Nickelus’ flows and wordplay, there’s a particular mode he enters so often that one cannot help but wonder if it’s the rapper’s baseline emotional register. His voice gets loud, as if he’s wailing and howling into the microphone, like a coyote serenading the full moon. He sounds so emotional that it’s like hearing childhood traumas escape from his vocal chords. On “I Ain’t Cried Yet”, Nickelus throws up desperation from a land of loose cigarettes and rusted hoopties (“I felt worthless / butt naked and hopeless / my urges, impulses, obsessive compulsive”); and prays to anyone that can help him out of the darkness on “I Got Up” (“Asking demons directions for ways up out of hell / I felt like God plugged up his ears when he heard me cry for help”). It doesn’t even matter if Nickelus is dropping battle rap punchlines in these more emotional moments. Like Ghostface, he can’t help but sound frenzied and panicked. Like Bon Iver, his voice gets sparser and strained at these volumes, beaten down and weathered.

It all comes together on the aforementioned “Horace Hardbody” where the rapper goes effortlessly from reminiscing on childhood nostalgias to providing fatherly advice to his sons and then concluding with a barrage of pure venom to close out the album sounding simultaneously as though he’s bursting into tears and squeezing his fist around the neck of everyone obstructing his path. Make no mistake, Nickelus would like to be more recognized, but he raps to save his soul.

And although STUCK climbs out of this mood just as often as it wallows in it, the classical samples of somber pianos, trumpets, and violins ooze and gel into the nooks of the album. These elements combine together along with the rapper’s self-made instrumentals to bestow the album with a unifying theme of raw struggle and a weathered, beaten-down resilience.

Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)

This is STUCK’s calling card and it flows over every track in such a way that the album hardens into a cohesive and unified body of work rather than a random collection of songs. Nickelus, at this point in his career, is Marlon Brando at the end of On The Waterfront, eyebrows furrowed in anguish, too worn out for fame and title belts, but still possessing the unmistakable and imposing mark of a broad-shouldered contender. He is Dennis “Cutty” Wise from The Wire, too old for this game full of young men half his age, but with the skills to play it better than most of them ever could.

“Cutty” from The Wire (HBO, 2002)

If there’s another artist that Nickelus most resembles it would be the infamous MF DOOM. Both artists eschew mainstream convention for more avant-garde song structures and both are stylistically and lyrically detached from everything else going on in rap music. Like DOOM’s work, STUCK could easily have been dropped any time in the past twenty-five years and it would not feel out of place. The record sounds like something nostalgic from the golden underground days while at the same time possessing a fresh, modern sparkle, paving a new way forward in 2018.

All signs point to the fact that Nickelus F will abscond back into anonymity, back into obscurity. Maybe that is his fate, and maybe it’s even his preference at this point.

One thing is certain though. Just as surely as Van Gogh rests in an unmarked grave and just as surely as his paintings bring over $100 million at auction, STUCK is one hell of an album: a unique, chiseled, and brilliant masterpiece.

Originally published at hovitostatus.com on June 17, 2018.