Happy 10th Anniversary to Apollo Brown & Guilty Simpson’s collaborative album Dice Game, originally released November 6, 2012.
It’s difficult to make a great album about striving for greatness. Music is filled with charlatans convinced of their own genius, making grandiose claims about changing the course of music. They often mistake ego for sincerity, and end up crawling up their own asses.
Which is what makes Dice Game an even more refreshing album. Released 10 years ago, the project is thus far the only collaboration between Detroit natives Byron “Guilty” Simpson and Erik “Apollo Brown” Stephens. Both artists take their music seriously in the best way possible, building something that will stand the test of time, but without the delusions of grandeur. Guilty Simpson and Apollo Brown succeed by playing to their strengths and not complicating matters, dropping sincere rhymes over well-crafted beats.
Dice Game is either at or near the top of many categories. It was one of the best albums of 2012. It was one of the best albums of the 2010s. It’s the best album that Guilty Simpson has released. It’s arguably the best album that Apollo Brown has produced in its entirety. And it’s arguably the best album ever released on the Mello Music Group imprint (though there are a handful of additional contenders). It’s a deep, thoughtful project that features a rapper and a producer operating at their respective best.
Simpson and Brown had been putting in some serious work before Dice Game. The former had been establishing himself as one of the brightest hardcore emcees around with his debut Ode to the Ghetto (2008), his Madlib-produced fever dream OJ Simpson (2010), and his supergroup with Black Milk and Sean Price, Random Axe (2011). Meanwhile, the latter had been extremely busy producing numerous projects for Mello Music Group. Along with The Reset compilation (2010), he’d also collaborated with emcees like Journalist 101, Boog Brown, Hassaan Mackey to produce entire projects. Earlier in 2012, Brown had seemingly hit his peak by providing the musical backdrop for O.C.’s Trophies. However, he managed to bring things up a notch with Dice Game.
The vast majority of the tracks on Dice Game have a set structure: Simpson drops a pair of verses to an Apollo Brown-produced soundtrack. Brown excels as the sonic heir to RZA throughout this project, chopping up samples from soul, jazz, and even classical records. On the mic, Simpson is at his most pensive and contemplative. Sure, there’s a few skill exhibitions, as he writes with a pen that’s “compressed hell,” but he also uses much of the album’s real estate to discuss his life’s journey to this point. He ponders the sacrifices that he needed to make in the often desolate environment that raised him.
Dice Game starts with “Reputation,” Simpson’s ode to Detroit, the city of both his and Apollo’s birth. The track is essentially the pair’s homage to Jay-Z’s “Where I’m From,” where Jigga describes life growing up in Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects. “Reputation” invokes the same subject matter and feel, right down to the sample of Yvonne Fair’s version of “Let Your Hair Down.” Simpson paints a picture of just how serious things can get in the Motor City, but also celebrates the residents who populate it. “I'm from where you gotta earn as far as the block’s concerned,” he raps. “The rubber they burn in Cadillac whips / Been through more shit than catfish / Home of the Amazon big-body Black chick.”
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Simpson dedicates a good chunk of Dice Game to his own work ethic and dedication to his craft. “One Man” is his grand oration on how he transformed himself into a focused, self-contained artist. On “Ink Blotches,” he makes great use of an orchestral string sample, marveling at how seamlessly he transitioned from making ends meet on the streets of Detroit to one of the best rappers in the game.
Simpson does occasionally demonstrate has verbal dexterity on Dice Game. His lyrical fury is most potent on “Lose You,” where he raps, “Look close, you see your fear, it shows / While I swing fists at your soul’s windows.” The track features one of Brown’s most creative beats, as he manipulates and chops a vocal sample, transforming it into the sole “instrument.”
The beast really comes out of Simpson when he and Brown enlist a pair of outside contributors, each working to match the emcee’s intensity. Torae joins the proceedings on “Potatoes,” teaming with Simpson as they each drop fiery verses to a soaring sample of Laura Lee’s “Two Lovely Pillows.” Simpson shines the brightest here, rapping, “Something new / I’m the vision you see when you're coming to / I’m the obstacle you dream of running through / Can’t do it, we fuck up crews and toast booze.”
Simpson and Fresno’s Planet Asia deliver rousing performances on the energized romp of “Nasty.” At the time, Asia was beginning the best stretch of his career, preparing to release a stream of extremely dope projects. Here he boasts, “You'll never find a n***a that's this real / To ash blunts on the Aston and treat a Benz like a big wheel.” For his part, Simpson spews molten lava over two separate verses, rapping, “Loud ganja, you think I give a fuck about your list? / Them clowns don't exist / That's how I feel with a skill set like this / I hit ’em with a black fist / Hostile style afro pick.”
Dice Game really excels when Simpson and Brown create tracks that demonstrate psychological depth. Simpson gives thorough explorations of his transitions from aspiring criminal to emcee, and examines how he has learned to continuously adapt. “I Can Do No Wrong” is a prequel of sorts to “One Man.” He describes both his drive to be the best, as well as the adversity he conquered to reach this point in his career, particularly how a close friend’s incarceration put him on the right path. On both “Neverending Story” and “Wrong Hand,” Simpson zeroes in on how his ability to rap has transformed his life, and how he’s ready to take his career to an even higher level. On “Neverending…” he muses, “Yo, I had a need for more, so my ceiling became my floor / For every one shut, I noticed a door.”
“How Will I Go” is a fitting closing chapter to Dice Game, as Simpson ponders his inevitable demise. The song is one of the best contemplations of mortality on record, as he considers the vast possibilities that death may eventually come for him, hoping that it’s quick and far off in the horizon, while also acknowledging that it may be the imminent result of his past misdeeds. “Will I get to reach my goals?” he ponders. “Or will it be so quick that I won't even know?”
Though Dice Game wasn’t Simpson’s first “One emcee, one producer” endeavor, it influenced all of his future projects. In the subsequent decade, he’s continued to refine his balance between impressive displays of skill and complexity of thought. Meanwhile, Brown has handled the entirety of the production on at least 15 more albums, ranging from compilations to instrumental albums to collaborations with rappers, groups, and vocalists. Neither of their abilities have wanted and both continue to create a staggering amount of incredible music. But I’m not sure if each has ever been better than they were on Dice Game, a true masterclass of hip-hop music.
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