Mixtape Review: Starlito – Insomnia Addict

Mixtape Review: Starlito – Insomnia Addict courtesy of Brandon Soderberg
Starlito – Insomnia Addict

“I decided to drop a mixtape, just because/ I can’t sleep and they’re sleeping on me/ All of the above.” That’s how Nashville, Tennessee’s Starlito begins his latest mixtape, Insomnia Addict. It is his fifth and final release of 2013 (Step Brothers 2 with Don Trip, the albums Cold Turkey and Fried Turkey, and mixtape, Attention: Tithes and Taxes are the others) and as those opening lines suggest, a concept album in which the incredibly prolific, tripped-out street rapper rhymes his way out of a sleepless night. Each track is tagged with a time, suggesting the very moment it was recorded, and a few feature samples from other paranoid rap songs (tortured classics like Jay-Z’s “Can I Live,” Nonchalant’s “5 O’Clock,” and the Geto Boys’ “Mind’s Playing Tricks On Me,” as well as “4:30AM,” a heavy-hearted anthem from ‘Lito’s  frequent collaborator and friend, Kevin Gates) placing this seemingly tossed-off tape in a continuum of introspective hip-hop inspired by the dread that comes with being awake way longer than you should.

And there’s undoubtedly a more throaty delivery and an even more free-associative flair to his raps here, that suggest the vocal wear and tear of being up too late. Consider these wily lines from “Hoodrich…Freestyle (4:20 A.M)”: “What up cuz?/ By the way, I’m Starlito/ .45 bullet hole, larger than a peephole/ Color blind on my grind for the root of evil/ Shout out the white people.” You can identify a little bit of Lil Wayne in the midst of his 2007 mixtape run in there for sure. Indeed, from 2003-2005 Starlito was signed to Cash Money Records, as All $tar, and it’s conceivable that not only was Starlito influenced by an about-to-blow Lil Wayne then, but that Lito influenced Wayne, a little bit, too.

Then again, we compare all the chaotic improvisational weirdo MCs to Lil Wayne these days, and frankly, what Starlito’s doing is even stranger and more unhinged. Imagine the hyper-sincere, often touching, but always half-joking ramble raps of Lil B, with pen-and-paper poetic focus and you’re close to the unpredictable nature of this stunning cult rapper who seems forever on the verge. Insomnia Addict‘s closer, “1da..y (6:00am),” is nearly twelve minutes long – a bleary-eyed trio of breathless trap songs that have in them, a hint of escape from all the hopelessness that he spit before. It’s a heartening conclusion that feels like the sun coming up, and the low stakes rewards that come with getting through a dark night of the soul.

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