What's Cole Beasley's Music Actually Like?
Move over, Megan Thee Stallion, I found the real star of the Houston rap scene.
Welcome to our maiden voyage on my newly rebranded Substack, Midnight Audible.
For a brief (re)introduction, this is a weekly newsletter breaking down weird, non-sports things that happen in the sports world — the kinds of things you’d only read about spontaneously and late at night, way down Google rabbit holes (kind of like calling a figurative audible at midnight, hence the name).
Anyway, I had something lined up for you, and then, Midnight Audible called an audible to make way for current events. Aggressively online Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley, known across the NFL for questioning the NFL’s stance COVID-19 vaccine and loudly promoting his personal choice not to get vaccinated, read from a prepared statement at training camp alluding to said choices. The Bills, for their part, posted and promoted this on social media. (I encourage you to read Patrick Redford’s Defector piece on this; I’m not getting into it further because I’ll start to scream again.) Additionally, Cole, ever the Poster himself, reiterated his statements by tweeting another statement in conjunction with promo for his new single, “Heavy 1s.”
Ah, you seem confused! Let me explain. In addition to being an unvaccinated football player, Cole Beasley expresses himself through the power of rap. He’s been pursuing this passion project since his time on the Dallas Cowboys, and released his debut album, The Autobiography, in 2018. According to his artist bio on Apple Music, his music contains “a sizable Eminem influence,” which, uh, we’ll get to shortly.
Naturally, all of this derailed my original post, and I found myself instead asking, “Well, what is Cole’s music actually like?” So, I decided to listen to three of his songs and provide you the overall impression.
While I pretty vocally rail against his numerous anti-vaccination screeds, I tried to go into Beasley’s music with as open of a mind as possible. After all, as a wannabe writer, how can cast judgement on someone’s creative endeavors? But, after about three seconds of “Heavy 1s,” I knew I was going to be doing some judging.
Please read on for my listening takes on his songs “Heavy 1s,” “Shock Value,” and “Ghosts.”
“Heavy 1s” (2021)
The opening is a bit off-putting. He starts with a really sing-song kind of tone. I can tell you, with confidence, I have no idea where this is going.
The first line is, if I heard it correctly, “The whole world can suck a D with no hands / they all love to see me fall like the seam of those pants,” and I’ve been thinking about this for at least 20 minutes. I have paused the song to reflect.
Okay, I’m back.
He riffs a bit on vaccines and the league coming to get him… and, like, honestly? Relative to the first 30 seconds of the song, Bease gets a little bit of a flow going, here. (Upon later reflection, yes. This is probably the best part of the song, and we need to accept it.)
The line “I got heavy nuts” absolutely explains the cover art, and the name “Heavy 1s.” He’s not subtle.
He rhymed “truck” with “fuck” and also “truck,” I think.
Right around 1:40, the beat does some interesting things. Not good things, I’d say. I think I actually wanted the backing track to drop completely and have him do a little freestyle moment, but that does not happen. It’s a bit underwhelming.
I kind of needed more of the weird sing-songy hook, oddly? Like, why did we abandon that?
This song was not a great start to my overall Beasley listening experience. I’d give it maybe a 0.5/5, if only because his riffing on being “ill” and the vaccine bordered on enjoyable.
“Shock Value” (2018)
No radio edit for me, thanks. I want to be blown away by the power of words.
The song is essentially about how his haters are surprised that he made it to the NFL, which is fine, except that at this point he had been in the league for several years. Did that not silence your haters enough?
He’s very much doing an Eminem impression here, which is not great, but it’s a vast improvement from whatever I just listened to for “Heavy 1s.”
He had some momentum leading into 0:40, but lost his steam. I wanted him to really go for it and it felt like he lost his train of thought.
These beats are borderline distracting, honestly. It feels like his producer wants so much to happen, but he’s also very sparse?
Oh no. Oh god. I don’t think I hate the chorus, though I’m not entirely sure what he’s saying. Could not tell you what the words he’s saying are. “How could I not [???]”
Around the 3:00 mark, he kind of tries to rap like Nicki Minaj. Cole, are you a BARB?!
So on “Heavy 1s,” he has a kind of southern drawl when he raps, and this makes sense, considering he’s from Texas. But here, he’s either really hiding the accent, or he’s overdoing it in “Heavy 1s.”
Overall, I actually didn’t fully hate this, but I’ll be honest with you, there really wasn’t any… uh, shock value? You could tell he was trying to go for Eminem, here, but it ended up sounding like a guy doing Nicki Minaj doing Eminem, which isn’t aurally pleasant.
“Ghosts” (2021)
So this song isn’t quite as popular as some of his other tracks, but I figured we should listen to a deep cut. Like “Shock Value,” there's also a radio edit, in case you wanted to play this at your local station.
IS THIS A LITTLE AUTOTUNE, COLE? AHHHHH!
Verse 1 isn’t horrible lyrically. Possibly the best lyrics I’ve heard so far in this little exercise.
The beats and production are also noticeably less distracting than on some of the other tracks.
Cole Beasley could do Shakespeare, but Shakespeare couldn’t do “Apparently I’m only doing what I’m not suppose”
He has rhymed “suppose” with “hoax” and “ghost.”
Okay right around 1:30 he tries to do achieve some voice effects with his own voice, and the whole song is ruined for me. I was ready to not hate it.
As far as an introspective “ballad” type rap, it’s honestly kind of par for the course. He’s definitely more inspired by sad boy rappers like Drake on this one. My biggest gripe with this one is that he, like, half-asses the autotune. Either you’re doing it or you’re not. It’s like he wanted you to know he can sing, but he can’t, so they put just a touch of autotune on it.
All in all, I’d say Beasley’s music is actually a really solid reflection of who he’s shown himself to be as a person: an underwhelming dude with a persecution complex who feels like no one believes in him, when in truth, he just wants to hear himself talk. He speaks ill of his haters without explanation as breezily as he throws out accusations that the league isn’t showing players full transparency about COVID-19 — talking shit without substance about a strawman that I’m not sure entirely exists. Also, maybe I chose the wrong songs, but the similarities between him and Eminem stop at “white rappers.” Unlike Eminem, who writes lyrics and delivers them with needle-like precision, Cole feels like he learned his disses from kids on a middle school bus and laughs at his own bars as he raps them as if they’re sick burns (spoiler alert: they’re not).
Simultaneously terrified and delighted by this.