Inhale C-4 $$$$$

Inhale C-4 $$$$$ is a mixtape by American electronic musician James Ferraro under the alias BEBETUNE$, released for free on December 14, 2011. Parodying the tropes of contemporary American hip hop music and its culture, Inhale C-4 $$$$$ marks the first time in Ferraro's career that he approached a hip hop style. Reviews of the mixtape from music journalists were mostly positive upon release, and it appeared in the top 20 of Tiny Mix Tapes' list of the best releases of 2012.

Inhale C-4 $$$$$
Mixtape by
BEBETUNE$
ReleasedDecember 14, 2011
GenreHip hop
Length50:39
ProducerJames Ferraro
BEBETUNE$ chronology
Far Side Virtual
(2011)		 Inhale C-4 $$$$$
(2011)		 Sushi
(2012)

Composition and concept

Inhale C-4 $$$$$ marks the first time in Ferraro's career that he approached a hip hop style.[1] Critic Jonathan Dean suggested that this direction was Ferraro's acknowledgement of his mixed race.[1] Categorized by writer Rory Gibb as a southern hip hop mixtape and by Impose magazine as crunk,[2][3] it parodies all of the tropes of modern American hip hop music; production-wise, there is trap music percussion, preset trance music-style synthesizer patches, auto-tune and a BEBETUNE$ production tag.[4][5] Gibb compared its hi-hat rhythms to that of the footwork and trap works of Vex'd member Kuedo.[2] There are some songs that even lack any sort of audio mixing or mastering, which is a satire on the little amount of quality control in making and releasing mixtapes.[4] The track "Li$$tening with my Eyezzz" features mumbled rapping from a character stage-named “Yung Cea$er" about being at a club, and the soft rapping on "Nero Cea$er/Anti Christ" spoofs the self-loathing lines present in the works of Drake and The Weeknd.[4] Despite the mixtape's hip hop direction, Gibb, writing for The Quietus, still noted it to have the same "glossy sounds, dense networks of samples and a convincingly web-age sheen" as Far Side Virtual (2011).[2]

Dean wrote that there were many ways Ferraro made Inhale C-4 $$$$$ more than just a spoof of modern hip hop; the title of the songs, which includes references to Macau and ringtones in Saharan cell phones, give the mixtape a "global" aesthetic that represents "the dense, teeming atmospheres of ultramodern, geographically hybrid urban spaces."[1] Dean also analyzed that Ferraro suggests, but most listeners don't, that there will be music movements of other genres that will contain the "low" standards of hip hop. Examples include "STREET DREAM$$", which is a chopped and screwed version of the Gang Gang Dance track "Glass Jar" and "Sahara Jr.", which is a "recapitulation" of the trance style of the band's album Eye Contact (2011).[1] Despite the mixtape having a sound accessible to mainstream listeners, Dean noted that it had an overall "giddy horror" feel, given that it suggests a future apocalypse caused by the overload of online data that consists of "signs, omens, and synchronicities that point to nothing other than themselves"; the track "NERO CEA$SAR/ANTI CHRIST" consists of "reptilian societies and GTA suicides", and "P.O.W.E.R." and "M A D N E $ $" are about people "tweeting the Armageddon using Siri voice commands, Hipstamatic photos, and T-Pain apps."[1] This leads to "a digital unease aggravated by multiple references to unhinged technological proliferation."[1]

Release and promotion
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Fact3.5/5[4]
Pitchfork3.8/10[5]
Tiny Mix Tapes[1]

Critic Jonathan Dean labeled the marketing of BEBETUNE$ and Inhale C-4 $$$$$ as "a new period of manic productiveness for Ferraro," where Ferraro used every internet service possible such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to promote the mixtape and the project; he noted the promotion's use of "hashtags and seemingly random cultural references that lay bare the surreal process of making-viral."[1] The cover art for Inhale C-4 $$$$$ consists of pictures of a 2008 promotional publicty stunt for the DVD release of the film Child's Play (1988), which involved six Chucky dolls "invading" the New York City intersection of Times Square.[6] Dean wrote it was an homage to the cover of DJ Paul's Volume 12, Part 2 (1993), in that Inhale C-4 $$$$$ has the same dark tone as Paul's mixtape.[6] Ferraro released the mixtape for free download via Mediafire, as well made it available for streaming, on December 14, 2011.[7]

In general, Inhale C-4 $$$$$ garnered positive opinions from music journalists.[1] Gibb described Ferraro's movement towards an R&B sound as a "pretty fascinating new development from an artist always in flux."[2] Chris Campbell, writing a review for Fact magazine, called it "often pretty entertaining," writing that "Bebetunes clearly isn't here to be taken too seriously, but he's got a lot more replay value than some of his subject matter."[4] Inhale C-4 $$$$$ landed at number 14 on a year-end list by Tiny Mix Tapes of the best releases of 2012, where Unicornmang wrote that it "was secretly about locating a kernel of belief at the core of all things cultural, messy, and anxious."[8] In a negative review, Pitchfork's Brandon Soderberg criticized Inhale C-4 $$$$$ for its "mutant strain of mainstream rap and R&B" and Ferraro for trying to recreate hip hop mixtape production, saying "the tracks here feel endless, like uninspired, snarky parodies of rap instrumentals, roving along for too long, filled with too many recycled ideas and yet, not one worth considering."[5]

Track listing
No.TitleLength
1."R E P T I L E Online"3:34
2."Macau Celebrities"5:13
3."Machine"1:52
4."Madne$$"4:42
5."#Grindlyfe"5:20
6."$treet Dreams"1:53
7."H20"2:54
8."LI$$tening With My Eyezzz" (featuring Yung Cea$er)3:36
9."Pepsi B@by"4:13
10."Sahara Jr."4:59
11."Siri Pop"1:15
12."P . O . W . E . R ."2:27
13."#City Light$"3:16
14."N E R O Cea$er / Anti - Chri$t"5:25
Total length:50:39

Release history
Region Date Format(s) Label
Worldwide December 14, 2011[3]
Self-released
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References
  1. Dean, Jonathan. "BEBETUNE$ – inhale C-4 $$$$$". Tiny Mix Tapes. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
  2. Gibb, Rory (December 14, 2011). "LISTEN: James Ferraro New Mixtape". The Quietus. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
  3. Spool, Ari (December 20, 2011). "Bebetunes, "INHALE C – 4 $$$$$ MIXTAPE”. Impose. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
  4. Campbell, Chris (December 15, 2011). "Bebetune$: Inhale C-4 $$$$$". Fact. The Vinyl Factory. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
  5. Soderberg, Brandon (January 13, 2012). "Bebetune$: Inhale C-4 $$$$$". Pitchfork. Conde Nast. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
  6. "Favorite 30 Albums of 2012 (So Far)". Tiny Mix Tapes. July 3, 2012. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
  7. "Bebetunes (James Ferraro) – Inhale C-4 $$$$$$$$$ mixtape". Dummy. December 14, 2011. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
  8. "2012: Favorite 50 Albums of 2012". Tiny Mix Tapes. December 17, 2012. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
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