[REVIEW] Ratking - 700 Fill

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With down parkas having achieved peak saturation, now couldn’t have been a better time for Ratking to drop an album called 700 Fill. The good thing about the sophomore follow-up to So It Goes is that it’s filled with so much heat that you won’t mind rolling your windows down to let the album bump in the wintery air even if you don’t have a Canada Goose on.

Opting to eschew a release date has grown to be a popular route in all walks of the music industry and the NYC trio decided to follow suit by releasing 700 Fill via BitTorrent last week. Having not had much in the way of new material from the group aside from Wiki’s guest verse on the U.S. remix of Skepta’s massive grime smash, “That’s Not Me,” the album certainly came as a welcome surprise to fans of the group and rap in general.

Composed of rappers Wiki and Hak, and producer Sporting Life, Ratking has enchanted young and old rap heads alike with their distinctly New York-flavoured rhymes and beats. Wiki and Hak’s realist rhymes are a welcome break from some of the corporate shit that New York produces, and they both spend a good deal of time combatting the gentrification of their beloved city in song.

The group has a canny tendency for taking the nostalgia of rap purists who only listen to pre-2000’s, or so-called “real hip-hop,” and exposing how empty it is. Without spurning the work of groups and artists like Migos and Young Thug, who have brought a rambunctious vibrancy to the rap scene, Ratking could be dubbed as the thinking fan’s favourite rap collective.

Ratking expertly toy with vintage influence on 700 Fill, itself a reference to the goose down fill in North Face parkas, and a track called “Steep Tech,” a musical ode to the brand’s adored Steep Tech jacket models. The latter song features Despot and Princess Nokia chiming in with quality efforts, and as a result is one of the better cuts off the album.

“Arnold Palmer” boasts a bombastic beat that will incite you to steal the aux cord in your homie’s whip just to hear it, and the rhymes are on point as well. “Bethel” pays homage to Allen Iverson’s famous practice tirade with an impassioned recitation of the Answer’s rant.

Fans of the first record will gravitate to “Flurry,” a track whose old-school production and incessant spitting is reminiscent of Wiki’s earlier solo effort. The song finds Wiki confronting the pressure that comes with being signed to a big label like XL, saying, “I don’t even know how to count bars, all I know is how to flow till I’m out.”

Whether that’s an honest confession or not, here’s to many more Ratking bars fighting the good fight against yuppie kids infiltrating New York with their parents’ money.

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