Your Old Droog — Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition
Where do you go when your first project is so good that the rap community thinks that you are Nas recording under a different name? For Ukrainian born but New York bred Your Old Droog, trying to shake off the comparison that brought him into the spotlight has been difficult. While his voice may sound strikingly similar to the legendary Queens MC, the elusive and cryptic rapper has now discovered his own lane. Coming off a prolific 2019 where he released 3 exceptional projects (Jewelry, It Wasn’t Even Close and Transportation), Droog has come out with Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition.
Igor Krutoy is a Ukranian classical and contemporary composer, and it is clear to see his influence on this record from the first track. Producer Argov is perfectly in-sync with Droog and helps him reinvent sonically. He lays down beats clearly tied to their heritage, the forefront of this album. They allow a canvas for Droog to paint a perfect picture of his come up, his insecurities as an immigrant in America, and finding success in hip hop using his vivid and humorous lyricism. Such is the skill of his word play, I found myself bars behind playing catch-up trying to work out what was just said. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the word ‘cantankerous’ in a rap song before.
Droog demands respect, he knows what he has to say is important and he wants you to listen. ‘Don’t miss the message just because you don’t like the messenger’, he says in the introduction track. He’s self-assured, ‘God’s my ghostwriter, giving me all kinds of stuff’, and ambitious ‘Go do it, how you got the sharpest tool in the box and don’t use it?’. We get a clear image of how Droog wants to present himself to the rap world. He warns of complacency, ‘Most cats go plat then they plateau’. This is an album from a level-headed yet confident and calculated rapper that is ready to keep making his mark in the game, and he should be trusted to do just that.
Ukraine opens with Droog discussing the racial hardships he went through as a young Ukrainian in New York, ’they said go back where you came from, I can’t go where I came from, as a kid we escaped it’. Large parts of the album are a homage to the Eastern European way of life, as Droog says himself on Twitter: ‘for a significant portion of my life I ran from who I truly was and to be able to make a record that wholly embraces my ethnic background, it tells the story how far I’ve come.’
A big highlight of the album is Matryoshka, named after the stacking Russian dolls. This is reflected within the song, 6 minutes long but with 5 different beats that Argov and DJ Preservation fit together seamlessly. It feels like Droog is taking you on a long train ride through Eastern Europe, each part of the song a new destination. As he switches between rapping in English and Ukranian, he defends his standoffish approach to his music and fans (he is known for blocking people even if they are being complementary), saying ‘If you know your worth you’re automatically arrogant.’ Towards the end of the journey, YOD reveals one of the more striking messages of the album, noting that he feels trapped inside his head due to his intelligence, and it’s easy to see that the dense and obscure nature of his writing is a reflection of that. ‘A true scholar’s burden, Tyler Durden, I fucked up my own self’.
Odessa is one of the more political songs on the record, with references to Chernobyl, the KGB and the high rise architecture in the East. The track features Billy Woods, who comes in and makes his presence known straight away, with a voice that demands your full attention, and a flow that makes every word important.
Droog brings in Phonte and Mach-Hommy for Uzbekistan, an aggressive and dark discourse about the pitfalls of the hip-hop world. As Droog puts it, ‘if nobody’s inserting your disk it’s disconcerting’. Phonte provides ice-cold verse with intricate rhymes, but I have to give a special note to Mach-Hommy’s work on this record. The secretive, unique, almost omniscient figure raps like someone who knows exactly what they are saying, but doesn’t want you to know what it means without putting in some work, and it helps if you speak Creole. His smooth flow comprises dense, engrossing tales that are a code for the listener to break.
Pravda is posse cut where everyone delivers. It is less of a song and more of a star-studded showcase of everything the underground rap scene has to offer. Droog goes first, with references to everything from Notorious B.I.G to ciabatta bread. Then comes Hommy again, delivering his usual confusing yet attentive rhymes. El-P from Run the Jewels enters, bringing his hard-hitting yet whimsical style, followed by Tha God Fahim who is energetic and verbose as always. The song is stolen at the end by Black Thought of The Roots, one of the most exceptional wordsmiths in hip-hop history. He is in full swing on this track, composed as always and deliberate with his message. He discusses his influence in the rap game, and fitting with the Soviet theme of the album his final line hits hard, ‘I’m a one person iron curtain, all you hear is pravda (truth)’.
I was extremely impressed by this record and it gets better every listen, whether you hear a new bar or appreciate Argov’s work on the beats more. You’ll be replaying and rewinding wondering if Droog just said what you thought he said. From complete anonymity on his first record, to a full disclosure of his heritage and struggles, Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition reveals not just Your Old Droog’s artistic growth but human growth too.
