Jimmy the Burnout

The Nocando narrative seems pretty easy to write at first. He's a Scribble Jam champ and Project Blowed vet, so he's versed in battle rap and its tendency to thrive on a heady blend of lyrical intricacy and haymaker punchlines. And if that's not enough, his presence as co-host of the hip-hop podcast Shots Fired (which, for the sake of full disclosure, is a joint production with Pitchfork contributor Jeff Weiss) reveals him as a relentless smartass whose depth of knowledge and easy rapport are only matched by his ability to tell a hilarious anecdote or six. Tie that into the precedence of his more recent albums—2010's Jimmy the Lock (where every other line was a clever piece of a swagnostic manifesto) and last year's mixtape Tits 'n Explosions (which is, well, called Tits 'n Explosions)—and it's hard not to go into one of his tracks without expecting at least some kind of slick joke to turn up. Jimmy the Burnout isn't all that different in that respect. Nocando's casually perceptive voice drops cliche-inverting quips and irreverent punchlines on the regular (from "Little Green Monsters": "I'm just another **** and this rap game is a glory hole"). And he sneaks in a pair of skits featuring comedians Jermaine Fowler (a meta-skit where he tries to pitch a skit idea) and Eric Andre. But throughout Jimmy the Burnout, weaved in through the punchlines and the witty turns of phrase, are deeper things. Nocando is a grown-ass man with a family, fresh into his thirties with plenty to look back on, and it's clear that through maturation and experience his sense of humor can trend towards the dark—not always edgy, but often on edge. Intricate metaphors and ****-talk alone don't put you in a class with Aceyalone and Murs, so it's fortunate that Nocando rarely if ever just focuses on spitting for its own sake here. Once you get past the diabolical vibe and halfway-horrorcore minor-key g-funk skulk of "Little Green Monsters", you can catch a rapper whose confidence and ambivalence are regularly at odds ("It's funny how stupid we feel the more we know/ Baby we ate off the same plate, how come all the porcelain broke"), even if he finds a way to make it sound like confidence is just one unguarded shot away from rallying towards a blowout. He raps about relationships in a way that sidesteps the potential corniness in being vulnerable, like when he sees an old flame and realizes "you never looked better/ until the day I saw you hanging off another nigga's arm" ("Never Looked Better") or tries to reconcile a tense, guarded moment between himself and his partner ("Too Much to Ask"). And whether he's pulling double-overtime in the shadow of his cousin locked in Chino ("3rd World Hustle") or standing up for people who're treated like they'll never amount to anything (the Mono/Poly remix of "Zero Hour"), he makes his stories of day-to-day struggles and striving to overcome bull**** ring as true as the best conscious-rap message tracks without a bitter aftertase. The fluidity of Nocando's voice deserves crediting for that. The way he works with the beats on Jimmy the Burnout is borderline chameleonic, able to snap tight to the mood of the track and jump right in with a crucial hook. That stands out clearly early on after a three-track run—the piano-and-horns throwback pop-soul of "Break Even", the cloudy chopped-vox-and-snare rumblings on "Did You Know That???", and the buttery slow-jam homage "Too Much to Ask" (all produced by Caleb Stone)—where he flips from knotty, assonant internal rhymes to straight-ahead choruses like the seasoned pro he is. Sometimes, production-by-committee results in a scattershot album where the identity and the vibe never really cohere. But here, it's just a good excuse for him to stretch out and put all his facets out there, whether he's amped up on Djemba Djemba's gospel-gothic boom-bap ("Hellfyre Club Anthem") or floating through some of Dâm-Funk's emotionally (and bodily) moving "smile with a tear" space-boogie ("Lucid Dream"). That he's showing this kind of range might be Nocando's slickest joke of all: his name just keeps getting more ironic with each record.