Dear Pac Div

DOWNLOAD: Pac Div - Mania!



Life is crazy. Life is unpredictable. Life is... controlled mania. Yeah... 'Mania'... Pac Div, your first album is tentatively called Grown Kid Syndrome. The title is self-explanatory. Grown kid: a person stuck between true adulthood and adolescence or childhood. You know, that 18-to-20-something age bracket. From college to jobs to friends to relationship to parents to religion, the things our demographic deal with are an organized mania orbiting our minds. As members of Generation Y, it's your right to speak your peace on the state of your personal mania.

Mania doesn't start out maniacal. Smooth pianos lace the first song, 'The Mirror', where you urge the listener to look to himself for answers. Amid midtempo snares, clearly stated gems galore:

"You don't get nothing if you don't work hard / You can't earn stripe if you never have scars / There's way more to life than money and nice cars / You are who you are, You could be a bum."

I haven't heard rappers come this straightforward in a while. Everything is veiled in 'swag' (#based and diet). The mania isn't straightforward. According to you, only SuperNegroes can sift through. No one can doubt your credentials though. You took the Lyn Collins sample (more recently Rob Base, and sadly Lil' Romeo) and turned it into your own exhibit of bravado. The mixtape reeks of it, yet your's isn't misplaced. Grown kids aren't supposed to take themselves too seriously, because if they did, they'd actually be grown. That is exacly how you portrayed yourself here. It made the music easy to listen to. You never failed to engage me as a listener and it gave the music a very homey feel compared to the 'out there' feeling that mania usually entails.

You guys don't seem to be affected by the mania around you, and continued to show how clear your view as grown kids is. There is kind of a dual consciousness that comes with being a resident in two different demographics. While one might dabble in the refined and stereotypically 'adult', one still revels in the indulgences of childhood. This mixtape did just that. You lauded the assets of the female gender, while revering their grace on 'Show You'. You examined the eerily close relationship between money and God, noting how sometimes we mistake one for the other on 'Saved'. And still, you managed to keep the charisma and wit that makes you grown kids in the first place. Tracks like 'Same Ol' Shit' and 'Chief Rocka Freestyle' (over the Lords of the Underground instrumental) come complete with our generation's smart-mouthed mentality, and enough punchlines to have you listening to this mania all week (and still

"Y'all stutter, all butter, call me Or-i-val / Redenbacher, bet I shock ya, like a morning call / record-settin nigga, started as an underdog / Nobody cares like you fightin on the undercard / you going 'Wood,' it's the lumber yard / we positioning for green like a summer job."

It's clear that you guys weren't just twiddling your thums since your last release, almost a year ago. 'Don't Mention It,' while a good work, felt rushed, and thus had a short shelf life in my iTunes. That you talked about your shortcomings on 'Nobody's Perfect' was endearing, coming after that previous effort. Your perpetual absence, outside of shows, made me wonder if you had hit the wall that a lot of 'blog rappers' (for lack of a better term; *throws up in mouth*) run into.

The lull between fame and stardom often suffocates rap acts. They either regress and evanesce because too much is expected from them without a veritable body of work like Jae Millz, or they explode with an industry-changing ebullience, a la Drake. Ending the Young Money motif, you guys seem poised to sift through the mania surrounding the music industry and create your own. On 'Out,' you envision the world that you, the Grown Kid, could create amidst the mania. It's the perfect ending to a mixtape that's a great prelude to what's hopefully a great debut album. You guys have penned the best mixtape of the year thus far. If there's mania around you now, the sky is the limit for how strong the Pacific Division can become...