Dave East’s ‘Free Smoke’ Doesn’t Come Without Fire

While the many flavours of ‘More Life’ are still permeating our collective palates, Dave East has decided to give his fans a Harlemized version of the album’s opener – ‘Free Smoke’. Needless to say, East blesses Boi-1da’s drums with some heavy bars.

You ever wonder where that eerie sample from ‘Free Smoke’ came from? No, me neither, until I stumbled across it the other day. It’s actually lifted from the opening track of Danny Brown and Tony Yayo’s collaborative tape ‘Hawaiian Snow’. It was at the time when Danny just dropped ‘Hybrid’ (his first LP) and, upon meeting Yayo, nearly signed to G-Unit. Bet we are all glad that never happened. Anyway, it’s called ‘Roll Up’. Listen to it. (End of digression.)

This particular freestyle comes after a string of others East’s dropped through SoundCloud, all in anticipation for his forthcoming project ‘PARANOIA’; which, if these freestyles are anything to go by, is going to bang.

As far as the track goes, East hits us with the usual criminal bravado which, at this point, he has down to a fine art. After claiming that ‘Ross got the hardest album out’, he flips Drake’s chorus nicely, paying homage to an incarcerated friend: ‘Free Loaf, free loaf / We blow, we smoke’.

Keep an ear out for more freestyles by Dave in the run up to ‘PARANOIA’ – they’re only gonna get better.