Steve 'Flash' JuonMac Lethal is the cliched “one of one” in music. You couldn’t invent David McCleary Sheldon in a laboratory nor could you replicate his success with a million AI bots. He’s a white rapper from Kansas City who went viral multiple times for completely different reasons. Once was for a freestyle rapped while making pancakes. Another time he created a satirical blog of a white rapper pretending to be black for his “cousin” Bennett and got a book deal that subsequently got optioned for a TV show. That show has never come out but still you have to admire that it even got to that level.
While “North Korean BBQ” is both listed as a mixtape and offered as a free download, there’s no difference here between a mixtape and an album. His vibe is also eerily similar to Canadian rap star D-Sisive, a comparison I’m forced to make not because they’re both white but because they both make rap songs that are almost painfully personal. “I’m Odd” reads like a diary entry he ripped out and set to a beat, a confession of his internalized pain with the listener unintentionally becoming his therapist.
“I swear to god, I’m scared shitless
Stuck on these mountains, and they’re cliffless
No place for me to jump, no audience to bear witness
Their interest, has dwindled down to glimpses, for instance
Even in Kansas City now I’m vintage
I’m trying hard to break away from underground hip-hop
cause 99 percent of y’all are gossipy bitches”
It feels like Lethal’s love/hate relationship with indie/underground rap may inform why “North Korean BBQ” is a free mixtape, but it may also be due to samples that couldn’t be cleared or would be too expensive to get clearances for. “Something I Can <3” may have been the exception because he actually went to the trouble of filming a music video for it and promoting the fact it was available a la carte on iTunes, even though you can still download it for $0.00 right now.
You might also be thinking that he offered this one for nothing because it was self-produced, but big name producers like Seven are behind tracks like “Shannon,” “Suitcases” and “War Drum.” I think my favorite is the DJ Khalil beat for “Dying Young.” Frankly given how many big hits he’s done (just to name one — Aloe Blacc’s chart topping “The Man“) this instrumental couldn’t have come cheap.
So why is “North Korean BBQ” free then? Ultimately it was either a thank you to his fanbase or a way to promote him going on tour to perform the songs from it. That only works if you have one, and I don’t know what it is these days, but in the early 2010’s Mac Lethal was definitely at the peak of his virality. It seems as though the pandemic slowed him down as his last new album was four years ago, but here you can hear the confidence of a young rapper who found his audience along with the freedom to connect with them through his stories. He worries about growing old, becoming irrelevant, being thought of as a poseur, ponders sobriety and the temptation to revisit bad habits, and stands alone at a wedding reception without a date on his arm. The haters could knock Mr. Sheldon for not being alpha enough but I don’t give a shit about that. I appreciate his vulnerability and honesty.