Steve 'Flash' Juon“Work that pussy bitch!”
There really wasn’t anywhere left for Lil Debbie to go after “OG In My System.” Her fifteen minutes of fame had come and gone. Despite that she found one last desperate attempt to stay relevant by rebranding herself as a bass/club/dance artist. She teamed up with the Netherlands based Barong Family and put out the “XXIII EP.” While Jordan Capozzi’s vocals can be heard on songs like “Immortal” they are at best an afterthought. It’s an unapologetic ode to a rave with all the tropes you’d expected — the electronic sound effects, samples, tempo shifts and reverses. It’s the kind of track that drops down in an attempt to yo-yo anybody on the dance floor to get relaxed and then suddenly burst with energy in a hyperactive (and likely drug fueled) manic display.
“We live forever baby, cause we the shit”
I can’t think of an extended play that screams GRASPING AT STRAWS more than this one. The only thing Debbie should have done here is remove “the” from her bar “we the shit.” She joins with Yung Felix to talk about how she’s “shitting on bitches” on “Work With That” and this is where her career was headed next. There’s nothing to stop her from making Scheiße videos is there? The raps throughout this mundane 150 seconds of “work” imply that everybody hates her for being rich and successful. Debbie, they’d have to care about you to hate you.
By the fifth track of this EP the Barong Family aren’t even pretending it’s about her any more. “All My Bitches” is by Yellow Claw (the artists behind B.F.) and she’s listed as the featured GUEST. The truth is that applies to every song here. There’s nothing for her to do other than be as crass as possible every chance you get to hear her open her mouth. Her vocabulary is like an episode of South Park that’s trying as hard as possible to get banned from television. Insert “bitch” and “shit” and “pussy” in any order every third word and you’ve got a Lil Debbie song from Barong.
The official clip online promises a “free download,” as if you’d want or need one. A swan song implies that an artist went out for one last graceful performance. This is as graceful as a sloth falling out of a tree and bashing its brains out on a jagged rock. That’s right. This is Lil Debbie’s sloth song.