It’s unclear if the 2020s will have the Gatsby-esque excess of the 1920s, but nothing we’ve heard in 2021 screams for a wild party quite like the “Woah, Kenny!” tag over a sample of Fiddler on the Roof. Get on that level with Flo Milli, who has teamed up with Kenny Beats for her crackerjack new song “Roaring 20s”.
Flo Milli erupted last year on her debut mixtape Ho, why is you here? With more hooks than a casting call for Peter Pan, the Alabama MC shook the rap world with a pair of surprise hits, “In the Party” and “Beef FloMix”. That success has brought her the attention of higher-profile collaborators.
Kenny Beats has developed a reputation for working with rappers on the rise, and just in the last few years he’s joined forces with Freddie Gibbs, Vince Staples, Rico Nasty, and Denzel Curry early in their ascension. “Roaring 20s” starts with one inspired choice — and presumably, a hefty sample budget. Mr. Beats loops the “Biddy biddy bums” from “If I Were a Rich Man”, weaving that humorous yearning into a cracked banger. Flo Milli is a percussive, expressive vocalist, pounding out stop-and-start flows while switching between flirty and cold, bratty and badass, but always, always with an eye on the money.
In a statement, Flo Milli said,
“The Roaring 20s was a period in history of dramatic social and political change. Last year I was able to break through during a very difficult time for not only our country but, the world. Born in 2000, and having my breakout year in 2020, I feel like I’m living in the new age of the Roaring 20s.
One of the most familiar symbols of the Roaring 20s was the birth of the new independent woman, known in those years as a flapper. A flapper is a young woman; unbothered by conventional standards of behavior. In addition to being more sexually free than previous generations, the women of the Roaring 20s had the bobbed hair, the short skirts, the drankin’, the smokin’, looks and participated in activities that were deemed ‘unladylike’. My lyrics, my style and my lifestyle all resonate with that freedom and I AM the Roaring 20s.”
Check out the song below.
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Last year, Kenny Beats linked with Denzel Curry for UNLOCKED, which later was turned into both a comic book and instrumental album.
