Pittsburgh’s music scene is the perfect hybrid of New York and Chicago. The city is nearly equidistant from both hip hop capitals and the slant of production and rapping from many of its artists hits the right balance between the old school Bronx energy and the boundary-pushing sounds of Chitown’s mainstays. The quality of artists coming from the ‘Burgh is overwhelming and we’re just on the cusp of seeing a mainstream re-birth of a more shoot-from-the-hip style in rap, ushered in by artists like Boaz and Palermo Stone.
“Fuck You All,” a meditation on the sinner/saint duality, comes from Palermo Stone’s The 2nd Coming (released yesterday by R.A.R.E. Nation). The track pulls the listener deep into Palermo’s world, an insular (“You either from the ‘Burgh or you not, nigga / We do not adopt”) and self-made environment (“Hustle for the needs / Nigga, never did it for no wants / If you can dream it up / Yeah, well I prolly did it once”), where taking a hardline stance against other people’s bullshit is the only way to sort out your own demons. Palermo calls this track The 2nd Coming‘s mission statement – though we haven’t spun the record yet, the gateway of “Fuck You All” ensures that this album is soon to be in heavy rotation over here at StGA.
