“Moolah, throwing it up high for what?/We ain’t celebrating, just trying to party up”—Ayomari
If the Notorious B.I.G.’s career-making “Party and Bullsh*t” was hip-hop’s Generation X anthem to 40-oz.-and-blunts excess way back in 1992, then TiRon and Ayomari’s “PRTY N BLSHT” is Gen Next’s very-over-it stoner hangover. In a recent interview about the song and its Cynical Smile-directed video (off their free 2013 EP, The Wonderful Prelude, TiRon (née Tiron Jeffries) breaks it all down.
“You know, Black people have ‘Black conversations.’ Not excluding nobody because it’s obviously humanity that we all care about. [After one of these conversations], I got to thinking about it. I was like yo, we are definitely encouraged to ‘turn up’ for no reason, you know what I’m saying? Like, it’s not Christmas, you know what I’m saying? It’s not St. Patrick’s Day, it’s ‘turn up’ because why? Because it’s Friday, you got off work, but is that really a reason to just get sh*t-faced and ignorant for no reason?”
TiRon & Omari “Ayomari” Allen (or T&A) were already well-known solo MCs, from L.A. and Chicago respectively, who decided to join forces in 2009 to form a two-man team as The Cafeteria Line. T&A paints their rhymes over a canvas of jazz, soul, blues and funk-sourced beats reminiscent of Native Tongues-era cool, but uniquely Left Coast in vocal delivery. And, like fellow travelers Kendrick Lamar and Lupe Fiasco, T&A are socially conscious and sick talented enough to make the medicine in their messages go down easily.
“Black people party way more than we celebrate,” says TiRon. “We wanted to make a bittersweet turn-down song.”—Sun Singleton
Stream T&A’s The Wonderful Prelude for free at their Bandcamp page. Also, check out the group’s free stream-able 2012 LP, A Sucker for Pumps. Shout them out directly on Facebook, Twitter and Ayomari’s Tumblr page.
Sun Singleton is a musician/editor/journalist based in New York City whose work has been featured in a variety of publications, including Vibe, Mass Appeal, Complex.com, EBONY.com, Bronx Biannual, YOYO/SO4 and BET Digital. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter at @sunsing.
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