#uthh

God, man - trying to pick favorites from the Jay Eazy takeover of January 7th feels like pulling teeth. It's truly just as Mr. Eazy said - "Shawty's cute AND her circle too" - in that so many of the event's rips are all bangers in their own ways. There's of course You Are Book Smart, the rip I covered back as the event wrapped up, which still stands out as one of the event's most creative in execution - yet in terms of picking out pure BANGERS from the event, Hella Pummel had tons of competition (including one you might've seen floating about here on Tumblr if you're in Splatoon circles). And while I don't really have any attachment to Undertale Halloween Hack itself, getting the rip requested really opened my eyes to just how fun of a listen it is. In xinos' own words, "there's something so infectious about it that it gives me brainworms".

And yeah, I can't say I disagree - mashups like this that modify both songs used to make them really fit together, stuff like Guilty Eyes Creeper, have a sort of hum-along-ability to them that's hard to get out of your head. It's in large part thanks due to how Jay Eazy's songs, primarily Mega Man as used in this event but his other stuff as well, are sort of the perfect blend of being genuinely funny in terms of lyrics whilst having an infectiously catchy beat and flow. But Hella Pummel then also employs the fantastic little trick covered in Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and the days of high quality rips?, where the vocals are given just a slight amount of compression on top, giving them a sort of nostalgic texture and meshing more naturally with the source track used. In having Jay Eazy's part play along with the already catchy Puma Pummel, slowing down and speeding up, leaving reverb and such where it best fits the mashup, the rip feels incredibly harmonious on the whole as a result, with the vocal filter in particular reminding me of Jevil's voice samples in Deltarune in particular.

There's of course the unsung hero of the rip, the surprise appearance of classic YouTube video Epic Rap Battle: Nerd vs. Geek by Rhett & Link for the rip's chorus. What connection the song has to Jay Eazy isn't really something I can comment on (I suppose both have ties to making geek culture into listenable music?) but it serves as an incredibly fun 180 in the rip's high point. The continuing use of the rap beat iconic to Jay Eazy rips throughout the rip keeps it all feeling cohesive even through its different phases, and several small voice samples of the guy are interjected here and there to maintain that Eazy flavor - including putting his best ever bar, "I think my money is gay / There's too many men on top of one another", in the fade-out section at the rip's end.