‘Survival Tactics’: The song that defines the career of Joey Bada$$
Joey Bada$$ came up during the same period as other New York artists like Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky and Future, and absolutely deserves to have his name lit up in lights alongside them. Whilst maybe not as commercially successful as his contemporaries, Joey has rightfully garnered a fierce following.
Born Jo-Vaughn Scott, sounding more like a country singer than a rapper, he hails from East Flatbush, New York. As a youth, he began rapping around the age of 15 under the stage name JayOhVee. Ever the savvy guy, he changed his name to Joey Bada$$ due to his awareness of the media’s focus on more cynical names.
Bada$$ is considered a student of the conscious school of rap where artists harness their rhythmic abilities to address social, political and cultural issues. These ideals surround almost every step of his career so far.
His 2017 album All Amerikkkan Bada$$ is a prime example of this, with tracks like ‘LAND OF THE FREE’ and ‘TEMPTATION’ heavily criticise the ever-present culture of racism and inequality in the US. He even takes a clever jab in the title, see if you can spot it.
Scott doubles down on his morals as he is also a member of the politically-centric group of creatives Pro Era, founded by his longtime friend Capital Steez. Prior to Steez’s untimely passing in 2012, the pair took a commendable stance on the plight of black Americans and were a shining example for the community.
It’s fitting then that Joey and Capital combined on a different project, defining the former’s career. In 2012, with Scott aged only 16, the pair released a music video for the song ‘Survival Tactics’ before even being signed artists. The song eventually featured on the Flatbush rapper’s otherworldly mixtape 1999; it would also go on to serve as a musical personification of the artist.
The most important thing to understand about this track, before lyrics and samples or anything else, is the infectious and almost insatiable energy that he brings. This was the marker for his approach to all of his projects that followed, never one to whisper; look up Joey Bada$$ in the dictionary and under the definition, it will read ‘energy, full stop’.
He harnesses this flow of electricity that clearly charges through his bones when he’s in the booth to pair it with a flow too good to be coming from someone his age. In the periods where he’s really feeling himself, it’s as if the spirit of Rakim possesses him, dishing out line after line of multisyllabic rhymes loaded with pure power.
The best example of this comes through “cause when n-ggas start equippin’, and throw the clip in, your blood drippin’, and got you slippin’, another victim, don’t know what’s hit them”. Every time the song reaches that point, your head starts nodding to the beat so strongly that you’d be mistaken for a wet dog. If you had a tail you’d wag it, it’s irresistible.
Listening to the lyrics is like stepping through time and stopping off at every point he released a new project. While he does the typical bragging that’s expected from a rapper’s earlier work, the writing in this song is truly a signifier that Joey has never deviated from his ideals. Showing that awareness level at such a young age is seriously impressive.
In a similar manner to Kendrick, he discusses the cyclical violence that is prevalent in black American communities. Talking about death he’s fairly blasé simply stating “just another man who defeated by survival”, because that’s the bleak reality that faced him and millions of others.
He later goes on to shout out “fuck every ass corrupt politician on Wall Street” and “fuck everything son, fuck government”, in a slightly juvenile rant. Juvenile or not these sentiments remained and matured throughout his later works, this is Joey Bada$$ love him or hate him, he does not care.
The track even samples the beat of the Styles of Beyond song of the same name. Currently, the Brooklyn native is one of the best samplers in the game and typically pays tribute to those samples in the titles of his tracks like when he sampled Men I Trust’s “Show Me How’ for his song ‘Show Me’ for 2000.
This track is by far his definitive song. It’s an amalgamation of all the aspects that have made him successful so far. He has never run out of gas or abandoned his engine and the mouthwatering flow is ever-present as he spits bar after bar of activism. He began all this at 16!
No one should be that talented and honed at such a young age. To put it simply, this song defines his career because it’s genius, undeniably, and Joey Bada$$ is genius, which is undeniable, too.