XV (feat. Kristina Rose) - “U.F.C.”

What I appreciate about the Kansan emcee XV is that he’s a dude who’s not afraid to be himself on the mic. Call him a nerd, call him a backpacker, call him anti-hood, whatever, he couldn’t care less. He’ll still rap about things like playing X-Box, comic books, good movies, and finding some pretty ladies who are into the same things. He’s a pretty down to earth guy, one with a lot of talent and solid work ethic (he’s released about 15 or so mixtapes in the last five years). Recently, he dropped his latest release Zero Heroes earlier this month, and I find myself coming back to the record frequently.

Now I’ve written about XV before, as I dug his earlier mixtape from 2009, Everybody’s Nobody, but to be honest I really didn’t care for much of his output afterwards. Zero Heroes, however, caught my attention from the get-go. It’s obvious that the kid has put some serious work into his skills, and as well, roped in a solid group of guests and producers for this record, and Zero Heroes contains some of his most engaging work yet. Vizzy keeps things mostly lighthearted and spastic, making for a listen which may not be extremely deep, but simply just a lot of fun.

And that’s definitely true with this one. Featuring porn star Kristina Rose (oh yeah, XV ain’t afraid to mention that he’s a fan of that too), “U.F.C.” was a track I found to be something of a hot mess on the first listen. I mean really, that doowop sample? The sound byte of Ms. Rose manipulated beyond belief? It was just a bit too odd for my tastes. But somehow, inexplicably, the track found its way into my playlist. What can I say? It grew on me, plus those thundering drums work just way too well with headphones.