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GoldLink, At What Cost (2017)

Inhabiting a space turns it into a territory, with the stories, the experiences, the culture and everything else that’s brought to a specific area along with people sharing their life there. It all builds up to shape a given land, adding a history, customs as well as artistic expressions that turn into concepts and social representations. As such, growing in a place comes with the inevitable development of mental structures that are fitting the unique area’s background and its population. “There’s no place like home“ says the timeless phrase to capture this feeling and the hip-hop culture has long made this idiom a key concept of its own. Repping, putting one’s hood on the map, somehow feels like a mission to most rappers, from André 3000’s “the South got something to say“ declaration at the Source Awards in 1995 to GoldLink’s At What Cost in 2017; the tradition goes on.

Born D’Anthony Carlos and raised between D.C. and Maryland, GoldLink is as DMV (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) as it gets. Since he started to rise, with 2015 mixtape The God Complex and the XXL Freshman cover of the same year, the rapper with a pimp-inspired stage name has been dedicated to craft a D.C. or more broadly a DMV sound. Yet At What Cost is his best attempt at it and its most straightforward, as demonstrated by Mya’s chorus on “Roll Call“:

“No matter where I go  So I'm always on the go  Gonna go back  'Cause it made me.“

Making the soundtrack of a city requires to fill it with a complex sonic landscape. Voices, accents, slangs, culture, noises, details and the imagery are among the many elements that compose the audible life of a given place. Such work echoes the profound nature of rap however. Collecting pieces of culture and vocal or linguistic parts to then blend them together. GoldLink follows that aforesaid dynamic in what feels like a collage of DMV. Talking to magazine Vibe, the rapper expressed that his “biggest influence is“ his “city“ and nothing illustrates this better than the myriad of guests on the album (Wale, Shy Glizzy, Radiant Children, Mya…), each representing facets of this triangle of states, from the way they stress on the words to their musical influences. Even more striking is the song “Kokamoe Freestyle“, which takes its name from a famous local figure that’s been sharing raps in a D.C. bus for years.

Narrating D.C., especially, requires storytelling skills that GoldLink shows with the fascinating biographical aspect of his music, already shown on his previous releases. Listening to his new album and notably “Meditation“, one can imagine the colder months in the city, with a crowd hanging near a basketball field looked upon by naked trees. Close-by, bass rattles the surrounding cars on a parking lot near brick houses. The streets can almost be visualized as the rapper names a dozen of neighborhoods and famous streets throughout the fourteen tracks. Along the same way, interludes and lyrical particularities are used to exhibit the city in all its uniqueness.

All in all, this is what At What Cost is about: life in the streets of the DMV area. Inspired by the rapper’s everyday life, the stories tell as much about him and his addiction to sex or his thirst for money and a better life than the underground tales go-go sound’s birthplace — the DMV inspirations are also sonic ones that the album succeeds in mixing together into one complex sound.

The eclectic nature of the area is summed up by the evolution between GoldLink’s former releases and this one. While he and his producer Louie Lastic have carved before what they called themselves the “future bounce“ sound, they only kept some of its architecture to create this album’s sonic signature, along with varied producers such as Kaytranada or members of The Internet. The overall upbeat and groovy dimension remain, joined by the welcome and compulsory regional funk influence. Go-go, more specifically, has been the area’s soundtrack since the 1970s. “Some Girl“ clearly pays homage to the musical genre while “Hands On Your Knees“ takes the listener to a go-go party, vibrating along the conga drums. Being a dancehall music that puts the accent on live audience call-and-response and improvised percussions, the go-go sound is full of energy and unequivocally invites to dance, together with its vibrant rhythm.

The sound is colored, upbeat and full of tropical percussion that GoldLink describes as “tribal“ to explain the area’s identity based on drums and the feeling of a community that accompanies it. Electronic music meets funk, soul and R&B vibes such as on “Herside Story“. The production remains minimal however to let the details and the images shine, although the voice melts in the background, painting GoldLink as a modern Chuck Brown, emceeing a crowded party, as shown on single “Crew“’s cover. This is, to sum it up, audible jiggling in both the lyrics and the live instrumentation sounding production with futuristic dashes appearing under Montreal producer Kaytranada’s notes.

Darius Moreno painted the album’s as well as the single’s covers and his art is an important part of the DMV kaleidoscopic vision. The rich color scheme he uses echoes the dizzying mix of sounds that builds D.C. and its area: the industrial and electronic concrete sounds on “Kokamoe Freestyle“, the cloudy yet boasting atmosphere of “Crew“, the overall go-go sound or the intimate and gospel sounding closer, “Pray Everyday (Survivor's Guilt)“.

The club culture, linked to funk and to the ballroom community, is also essential to the painting. Full of luscious and sexual lyrics, the album brings to mind Moreno’s eccentric and warm images of the local youth that rises the temperature in the “Chocolate City“ with its LGBT friendly subculture and parties. Repping with pride the DMV is also a way for GoldLink to praise its women. The street-savvy narratives are thus soaked with exaggerated sexual braggadocio, going from butter smooth dancing to deeply misogynistic stunts while referencing a couple heartbreaks. Peeling the city like he seems to undress girls on “Have You Seen That Girl“, the rapper shouts out to the hoods he respects by exploring the different women that live there. Along the same way and as GoldLink relates his past and future love affairs throughout the album, Shy Glizzy adds an energetic verse about luring fancy girls from the richer neighborhoods to his dangerous Southeast D.C. on the album’s standout track and DMV anthem “Crew“, on which Baltimore Brent Faiyaz also sings .

Yet, the sensual sheen reveals darker spots in its cracks. At the end of “Meditation“, GoldLink appears to be caught in a fight with gunshots as he is flirting with a seducing woman from a rival hood. The scene could have taken place in legendary Club U since the DMV and the go-go culture is also sadly linked to violence. This modern Romeo and Juliet story echoes more gloomy lyrics found on the album where the violence balances the somewhat idyllic views of the area, as shown by “We Will Never Die“ where the term “go-go“ sounds like a stammering pronunciation of goddamn that regrets the gone friends. D.C. remains D.C. after all and gun shots as well as death are part of the city’s and of the area’s soundtrack too.

In a place where death can be found at the corner of the street, religion, family and good times seem to be the best armor. On the album’s last song, GoldLink raps over a gospel infused production, reminding himself to pray, like his mother used to tell him, while a choir slowly joins him one line at a time. The song ends however with a prayer that refreshes the rivalry between DMV’s territories, instead of calling for peace. Similarly, taking a new spin on the classic gospel song “Shake The Devil Off“ that GoldLink and his friends grew up with, Jazmine Sullivan sings on the chorus of “Meditation“ the somewhat profane “Shake, shake, shake“, “in the name of dancehall“. In the end, music, sex and violence outshine the rest. This is DMV.

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