Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
Von Pea has always seemed comfortable in his own skin. His discography, both solo and as half of Tanya Morgan, his duo with Brooklyn-by-way-of-Cincinnati rapper-producer Donwill, spans 20-plus years and is remarkably consistent in its self-assuredness. Pea’s trademarks are lightly funky beats, a winking sense of humor, slyly sophisticated writing, and a malleable flow that he masks with an airy calm. Listening to a Von Pea record can elevate your mood; his work is never saccharine or try-hard, but the love of the craft, the excitement of experimentation, the thrill of a new turn of phrase—it’s all palpable, contagious even. He doesn’t shy away from the sometimes painful work of self-examination, but operates with the well-worn wisdom that it’s all just a work in progress.
Putcha Weight On It, Pea’s latest, which reunites him with DMV production team The Other Guys, is a bit of a culmination of sorts. Now firmly in middle age, Von Pea takes stock of his career, his personal life, and his influences (the closer, “Root For The Villain,” is a beautifully executed tribute to MF DOOM), eyeing his life like an amused spectator hovering over his shoulder. It’s a remarkably charming album: Over the Other Guys’ bass-y, b-boy beats, Pea calls lesser rappers “dingbats,” plays up his generosity in the bedroom, and modestly brags about the “thousands” he’s made from music. On “Shown Up,” he even engages in a little bit of oldhead shit talk (“I’m chillin’ and I’m grown with a chaise in my home/ Your favorite rapper wanna know if I got games on my phone”) but stops himself from following that thread, cutting the song off midway through the next bar. Pea’s as sharp and funny as ever, but most importantly, he hasn’t lost his sense of fun. You get the feeling that his face scrunched when he heard each beat, and broke into a smile during every verse.
Near the end of the album, Pea offers a simple but profound moment of clarity. In the opening moments of “Bway & Myrtle,” he stands under the elevated tracks at the titular Brooklyn avenues, interpolating a quote from Yasiin Bey’s “Mathematics”: “Darker than midnight at Broadway and Myrtle.” The busy five-corner junction is where his native Bed-Stuy meets the adjacent Bushwick, an iconic location immortalized in a bunch of seminal ‘90s rap videos. He briefly becomes a docent, pointing out the spots where AZ stood in “Sugarhill,” the storefronts Redman haunts in “Funkorama,” and the bits of scenery that pass by DJ Premier and Guru’s car in “Mass Appeal.” Despite his typically nonchalant affect, Pea sounds almost beatific, proudly surveying the area whose history he shares. The neighborhood has changed a good bit in the intervening years, but he takes it in stride, rapping, “Now that we here, they say that we old/ Like that ain’t the goal.” It’s the perfect encapsulation of the Von Pea philosophy: Each sunrise is a miracle, weighty with lessons and worthy of exploration.
