Sick For What’s Clean

girl_irl “Bullseye”

“Bullseye” reminds me a bit of Tricky circa Pre-Millennium Tension and Angels With Dirty Faces, when he was trying to make his funk grooves as abrasive as possible to scare off anyone who liked the more overtly R&B qualities of Maxinquaye. But whereas his greatest stylistic trick was to double his breathy, muttered raps with the more soulful and angelic voice of Martina Topley-Bird, girl_irl embodies both his menace and Topley-Bird’s femme grace in her vocal on this song. The tone of the lyrics is kinda braggy and swaggy, but as much as she proclaims herself a goddess and roasts this other person she’s entangled with, the context seems messy and toxic enough that you question how she’s in this situationship if she’s so elevated and cool. But I think that’s a lot of the point, the idealized self-image punctured yet preserved.

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