JDirty

The free association that characterizes JDirty’s new mixtape is a double-edged sword: While his lyrics are unpretentious and seemingly effortless, they often come off as too effortless, with obvious, sometimes sing-songy rhymes prevailing. Still, it’s nice that the MC doesn’t take himself too seriously, dishing some legitimately funny lines: On “COTEX,” a song about the rapper’s Colorado-Texas connection, he employs the refrain “no strings attached,” which is either ingenious comedic wordplay or a hilarious gaffe. But JDirty gets into serious issues, too, such as identity and fatherhood, on tracks like “Your Opinion” and “Real Life.” The rapper describes his brand of rap as “scrub-hop,” influenced by Juggalo culture and built from the ground up, and he’s an endearing underdog figure. He would be even more convincing were it not for his shallow endorsement of alcoholism and gay slurs and his fondness for the word “bitch.”