{"id":665932,"date":"2026-08-31T23:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T23:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/665932\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T23:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T23:04:14","slug":"xaviersobased-struggle-gang-track-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/665932\/","title":{"rendered":"xaviersobased: \u201cStruggle Gang\u201d Track Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/artists\/xaviersobased\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">xaviersobased<\/a> might be an offspring of <a href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/artists\/28900-lil-b\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lil B<\/a>, but he\u2019s too nonchalant to make anything as gooey-sincere and wordy as \u201cBeat the Odds.\u201d The SoundCloud-kid-turned-major-label-wunderkind\u2019s version of a look-how-far-I\u2019ve-come anthem is \u201cStruggle Gang.\u201d This is a monster truck of a track: It doesn\u2019t make sense if you break it down to its janky scrap parts. You have to let it toss you around.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s break it down anyway. There\u2019s a bunch of different types of Xavier songs: the accessible, razor-sharp sing-raps (\u201cSpecial,\u201d \u201clove hate\u201d); the lowend-fueled exercises in coarse texture (\u201cOn My Own,\u201d \u201cworth it\u201d); the zooted dreams (\u201cLinda,\u201d \u201cvibrator\u201d) and nightmares (\u201cfix my mind\u201d); the fried Martian moans (\u201cchoir,\u201d \u201cfar,\u201d \u201cu dk how 2 hoop\u201d). \u201cStruggle Gang\u201d spams every impulse at once. The first verse\u2019s ominous piano and percussive buzz set off the haunted adrenaline, as a faded-sounding Xav swats away unwanted eyes and flexes without really flexing.<\/p>\n<p>On the hook, the buzz turns into a locust swarm and plaintive synths wail like shadow hands. Xavier sends out an SOS call from the soul and stagger-steps between emotional registers: He\u2019s begging a woman to treat him right then asking her to twerk on him, rhyming the porn website \u201cCamsoda\u201d with \u201cYoda.\u201d He delivers some funny pubic-hair opinions that are even funnier because the beat is like a gothic Castlevania OST, and, finally, he shouts out his mom. \u201cI could tell you horror stories, that\u2019ll take a while,\u201d he mumbles, knowing that he can convey more in these ambivalent musical ellipses. He works best in this mode: It\u2019s silly, desperate, and lost, the sound of a guy grinning with an ache under the surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"xaviersobased might be an offspring of Lil B, but he\u2019s too nonchalant to make anything as gooey-sincere and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,17,337,70285,806],"class_list":["post-665932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-tracks","tag-web"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117192626412648628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}