Drake
In retrospect, it is fairly easy to pinpoint hints that an artist was destined to be a high-level player. When it comes to the brief yet blossoming career of one Aubrey Drake Graham, the appeal couldn’t be any more recognizable. Possessing the flow of an MC with R&B sensibilities, the talents of the Canadian native have scored him runaway popularity in the midst of his mixtape smash So Far Gone. As Drake warily maps out the next stage of his career which apexes with the release of his debut album on Lil’ Wayne’s Young Money imprint, fans can rejoice that his famed release has been stripped down for consumer consumption.
Unraveling the depravities of his soul in just 7 tracks, the extended play gives a clear definition of the virtuosity Drake feels most comfortable with expressing through his music. If the slow burning “Houstatlantavegas” is any-girl-USA’s living nightmare, then “Fear” casts light on the host which develops Drizzy’s phobias as he reveals “I think I’m scared of what the future holds/I was wishing for some things and now I’m used to those…/All my old friends think I gotta new crowd/and people seem to notice everytime I do smile/I guess that mean they come few & far between/Even though I’m living out what you would call a dream…” over a dreamy DJ Khalil soundscape.
Personable moments like these give Drake distinction from your average rookie although his continuous bouts of ventilation teeter along the lines of mellow and melodramatic. Not to mention Lil’ Wayne appearing on 3 of the 7 songs could be perceived as a barrel of self-doubt given Drake’s content’s dismal nature.
Still it’s brilliance like the potty-mouthed dedication to the “Best I Ever Had” and Trey Songz-featured “Successful” which hits its stride as an ode to the ultimate goal, that pit the young star’s artistry in a class by itself. If his retail value manages to match the worth of his promotional material, expect the kid to be out of sight in no time.
ALBUM REVIEW By TC
Artist: Drake
Album: So Far Gone EP
Genre: Hip Hop / Rap
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/thisisdrake
-Track List-
1. Houstatlantavegas
2. Successful f. Trey Songz & Lil Wayne
3. Best I Ever Had
4. Uptown f. Bun B & Lil Wayne
5. I’m Goin’ In f. Lil Wayne
6. The Calm
7. Fear
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Shawn Chrystopher
Let me start by saying this, the album is like a surreal walk through the narrator’s life, that narrator is Shawn Chrys. The production sonically pieces the ups and downs together into a cohesive unit. The album is best heard from beginning to end so you can fell the experience of it. The variety of instruments and transitions between songs take you on musical journey. You can ponder not making it in life like on the song “Believer” where Shawn paints a picture of a rapper who fails at his dream and sees his girl beside him as he tells her he’ll make it work for them. Anyone who is trying to find their way in life and has taken a significant other on that roller coaster ride can relate to this. As the instrumental plays and you can vibe out and think about the situation, you are interrupted by strings of another kind and Shawn begins his dedication to his mother. A heartfelt ode to his mother’s struggle as a single parent and him being able to grow up and take care of her. On the next track Shawn addresses a significant other that’s not being fair in the relationship. This track is called Heartbreaker and we can all relate to feeling like this in a relationship as the hook goes: “I F___ up sometimes I admit, when you f___ up you don’t say s___!!!” If you’ve never had that feeling before you’re not human. Shawn vents his two verses in an unconventional 8 bars and then the beat pauses and builds up almost like an idea of tension, then a different voice chimes in, this voice being that of Chris Focus. Chris gives his example of a similar situation, says the hook and the beat plays as if to let you or the girl ponder the situation.
The next few songs Shawn goes into metaphorical mode with “Fresh Prince” (you’ll have to listen to understand), “[Untitled]” which is a love story but not your usual love story and then “You’re Beautiful At Night”. Shawn explained that “…Beautiful At…” was inspired by Downtown La and is actually about DTLA. The concept is how the same skyline and section of town that is so eye catching during nightfall is an ugly harsh sight in sunlight. You’ll have to listen to the lyrics to put it all together. “Lose Your Mind” and “Cloud 9″ are more party type songs but are very dope. The two songs seem to encompass you into a celebratory mood. The production is stellar and gets you hyped and as Shawn raps you can feel the energy. As I told him, I can see folks in a large Vegas club going crazy to it or being a perfect performance song for a large concert venue. Lastly Shawn ends the album with “Letter to An Angel” a dedication to his grandmother…and if you listen to the song (you know the beat and the lyrics) everything is fitting to the title.
Overall this is a dope album…the production is intense where it needs to be and soothing where it needs to be. The album sonically captures emotions musically and then Shawn comes in captures those emotions lyrically. This album, though it’s hip hop and the vocals are pretty much rapped, is very much approached musically. It’s not about the best beats, or the fiercest rhyme scheme but about putting together a song as a whole and connecting with people. It’s the biggest problem with hip hop sometimes; being able to take a chance and show emotions. Shawn Chrystopher steps outside of that box and attacks that taboo head on. This album is all about feelings…it’s very much a rollercoaster ride through Shawn’s thoughts. Thanks for sharing Shawn.
Review By Eazee Street
Artist: Shawn Chrystopher
Album: A City With No Seasons [2009]
Genre: Hip Hop / Rap
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/shawnchrystopher
-Track List-
1. …And I Present
2. On Stage
3. Believer
4. Position
5. Heartbreaker f. Chris Focus
6. Fresh Prince
7. [Untitled]
8. You’re Beautiful at Night
9. Lose Your Mind
10. Cloud 9
11. A Letter to an Angel f. Mateo
Nelly
The first thing you notice about Nelly’s latest offering is that the guest list is pretty extensive. Of the 17 tracks on the album only three feature Nelly by himself. It used to be that a guest appearance lent a certain amount of cred to your album; it was an event. But these days the guest shot has become routine. What’s worse is that often the guest outshines the core artist, which isn’t supposed to be the case. For example Rick Ross totally commands the opening track, “You Ain’t Him.”
Other guests falling under the Brass Knuckle spell include Snoop Dogg & Nate Dogg on the obligatory West Coast praise track “LA,” Usher, Fergie, Ashanti, Akon, Ciara, Jermaine Dupri, Pharrell, Avery Storm, Gucci Mane, and R. Kelly. As you can tell from this list, the songs run the gamut from pop ditties to straight Churban soul, proving that Nelly continues to move more and more into the realm of across the boards pop and further and further away from basic rap.
Additionally Nelly’s St. Lunatics crew pop up on the extremely mellow “Lie,” which is a typical burned by a woman slow jam in which the protagonist is a woman who has accused Nelly and company of inappropriate behavior. The St. Lunatics also chime in on “Chill,” one of the stronger tracks on the album, both in terms of its lumbering cadence and solid rhyme stance (plus the chorus offers up some genuine words of wisdom we can all live by).
Perhaps the most surprising guest appearance comes in the form of LL Cool J on “Hold Up. It’s slightly ironic (or maybe it’s meant as an homage) to see the GOAT included here given that Nelly’s cover photos for Brass Knuckles have the St. Louis baller emulating the cut and ripped pix of Cool J from back in the Mama Said Knock You Out era. Nelly also taps Public Enemy’s Chuck D. for “Self Esteem,” which is a smoothly paced neo Latin soul number wherein Nelly almost sings a tango
In terms of where Nelly is coming from stylistically, if you own any of his previous records then you pretty much know what to expect. Lyrically the songs focus on the tried and true thematics of riding around town in swank vehicles, pimping the fine ladies, and generally engaging in either party or materialistic oriented endeavors. Stylistically Nelly’s trademark slurring of words is still very much intact on numbers like “Ucud Gedit” where he lets loose with plenty of “thurrs” and “hurrs” and the like. And of course there’s plenty of his sing-song hooks, which lend the tracks more of a contemporary R&B flavor than a hardcore rap angle (though admittedly Nelly has never pretended to be too rough and tumble, musically speaking, that is).
As can be expected the tracks featuring the likes of Usher, R. Kelly, Avery Storm, and Akon lean more towards appeasing the female fans. “Long Night” is silky number filled with echo vocal mellowness.
Nelly takes a few excursions into “experimental” terrain, so to speak, on tracks like “Warrior,” which is stripped down to nothing more than tribal drums, hand claps, and field worker chants. It’s compelling as it stands out from the rest of the over produced elements on the album. Likewise, “Let’s Go” is nothing more than driving horns and a kick drum back beat, giving Nelly a platform to rock the rhyme accordingly. Naturally it’s further fueled by the relentless call and response chanting, giving it an almost Midwestern go-go vibe. And the Pharrell track, “Let It Go Lil Mama” is a static electro drone that keeps consistent time and provides a hypnotically repetitive element that’s insidiously catchy.
The title of the album may evoke images of rough and tumble tussles and street corner brawls, but the contents are more suited for dress coded clubs, dimly lit bedrooms, and sparkling clean Hummers cruising down Sunset Blvd. than grimy city blocks or front porch boombox sessions. For all its perceived posturing Brass Knuckles takes what Nelly explored on Sweat and Suit and condenses it into one singular album. To this end it is more of the same from the St. Louis rapper, delivering sing-song slices of urban pop wrapped up in swagger and circumstance.
Review By Spencer D. of IGNReview
Artist: Nelly
Album: Discography
Genre: Rap / Hip Hop
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/nelly
-Album List-
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Cage
Before listening to this album, you must take a deep breath and hold it, as if a massive tidal wave is about to engulf you and hold you under for about 45 minutes. Depart From Me is a very dense, very heavy album. From the opening cut, “Nothing Left To Say”, it becomes apparent that Chris Palko, better known as Cage, is going to take us on a trip full of distortion, emotion, pain, and all sorts of ups and downs. Where to begin? We wake up on the floor, disoriented, and don’t get much better from there.
Cage seems to be taking a slightly different route with this Depart From Me. This album takes a hefty chunk of influence from electronica and rock influence, backed by pounding bass drums reminiscent of a hangover or intense headache – and that’s not a bad thing. The point of this album seems to be to drag out painful, raw emotions through Cage’s signature slow drawn out rapping. While he usually focuses on very personal stories, there seemed to be a small lack of personal touch on Depart; not a total absence, as the track “Katie’s Song” proves, where Cage recalls a topically happy, yet overwhelmingly hopeless tale of love. Some other personal touches come up with some commentary from Cage, introducing himself as a former patient of a hospital rehab clinic, and proceeding to dictate his experiences from that time of his life, on “Dr. Strong”. However, the content does become somewhat muddled and overdone, as the torturous ride becomes a little repetitive fails to take any unexpected turns – the album is fairly predictable. Furthermore, Cage’s use of hooks detracts from the story-like feel of the songs. That said, the content itself is never weak; it remains decent at its worst.
That said, the driving force behind this album is the stellar production that supports many tracks. There has always been an eerie, dark approach to a lot of Def Jux projects, but with Cage’s latest, it is especially bleak (once again, a good thing). It is this production, combined with Cage’s lyrics and screwed delivery, that provides such a haunting backdrop. Some of the tracks are driven by distorted guitars, others by deep synths, and they get a kick from some highly creative drum loops. The production also does a great job of pacing the album – the transition from one track to the next makes sense (although a surprise here or there would be nice).
Depart From Me is a heavy album that requires processing. However, few will likely take the time to process it fully because they will be alienated by the excessive complaining and dragged out emotional banter. But dig a little deeper and expect to find some messages hidden in here; Cage does have something to say.
Review By Potholesinmyblog.com
Artist: Cage
Album: Depart From Me [2009]
Genre: Hip Hop / Rap
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/cagekennylz
-Track List-
1. Nothing Left To Say
2. Beat Kids
3. Dr. Strong
4. I Found My Mind In Connecticut
5. I Lost It In Havertown
6. Teenage Hands
7. Eating Its Way Out Of Me
8. Kick Rocks
9. Captain Burnout
10. Strain
11. Fat Kids Need An Anthem
12. Look At What You Did
13. Depart From Me
14. I Never Knew You
“I Never Knew You”
DIRECTED BY SHIA LABOUF
Asher Roth
Three decades after hip-hop first cracked the Top 40, white MCs remain, first and foremost, a joke: fodder for sketch-comedy routines, YouTube parodies and reality TV. Eminem is the exception that proves the rule, and he had to create an outsize tragicomic persona — the trailer-trash bane of Middle America — to justify his existence. In a culture saturated by hip-hop, shouldn’t anyone be able to spit rhymes without shame, apology or having to crack jokes about his Star Wars action-figure collection?
Enter Asher Roth, a gangly redhead from the Philadelphia suburbs. Roth’s tight, witty debut lives up to the Internet hype that has swirled around him for months. In the thudding “Lark on My Go-Kart,” Roth calls himself a “dork” and says he has “hair like a troll doll.” But he keeps the nerd-boy self-deprecation to a minimum and acts, you know, like a rapper: boasting nimbly (and often hilariously) about getting girls (“Lion’s Roar”) and getting high (“Blunt Cruisin’”) over chipper beats by newcomer Oren Yoel. Roth’s timbre and cadence will remind listeners of Eminem, a subject he addresses head-on in “As I Em.” But he is his own man — a blithe braggart, untroubled by the need to keep it real. And that white rapper’s albatross? He dismisses it with a couplet: “My friends said, ‘Homey, you know that you’re white, dude’/I said, ‘What, for real? It’s all good.’”
Review By The Rolling Stone Review
Artist: Asher Roth
Album: Asleep In The Bread Aisle
Genre: Hip Hop / Rap
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/asherrothmusic
-Tracklist-
1. Lark on My Go Cart (prod. by Oren Yoel and David Appleton)
2. Blunt Cruise (prod. by Oren Yoel)
3. I Love College (prod. By Mike Carren and Ben Allen)
4. La Di Da (prod. By Don Cannon)
5. Fallen (prod. by Novel)
6. Be By Myself Feat. Cee-Lo (prod. by Oren Yoel)
7. She Don’t Want A Man (prod. by Oren Yoel)
8. Sour Patch Kids (prod. by Oren Yoel)
9. As I Em (prod. by Oren Yoel and David Appleton)
10.Bad Day Feat. Jazze Pha (prod. by Oren Yoel and David Appleton)
11. Leo The Lion Feat. New Kingdom (prod. by Yoel)
12. His Dream Feat. Miguel (prod. by Yoel)
13. Nothing You Can’t Do (prod. by Nottz)
Read MoreTry Album [Mediafire] | Asher Roth – Asleep In The Bread Aisle
T.I
Clifford Harris has gotten pretty good at this self-fulfilling prophecy thing. Though 2003′s Trap Musik made him a regional royal in Atlanta, 2006′s King accurately predicted he’d go nationwide. That record, combined with the positive reception of his film ATL the same year, gave hip-hop the legitimate multimedia crossover star it needed as interest in 50 Cent flagged. But his predictive powers worked against him on last year’s T.I. vs T.I.P., a sloppy and rushed collection loosely based on the notion that no matter how firmly the rapper entrenched himself in the pop world, anything from his hustler past– from his hotheadedness to his felonies to his associations– could compromise his success. Which is exactly what happened: He’s now staring down jail time for attempting to purchase machine guns from a federal agent in a Walgreens parking lot.
T.I. apparently learned his lesson, and on Paper Trail, he’s not taking any chances with an extraneous narrative. Although some recent mixtape tracks suggest we might be getting a 25th Hour-like confessional from Harris on his way to a one-year sentence in 2009 (or reality TV), Paper Trail bases itself on the assumption that everything’s going to be all right for him, emotionally and financially. Breaking rank from his previous two efforts by writing down his lyrics again, he immediately shows a willingness to do something other than coast from hook to hook– at least at the outset, on “56 Bars (Intro)” and “I’m Illy”. Not that he’s morphed into Pharoahe Monch or anything: His wordplay likens his weed to celery and his money-getting ability to the U.S. Treasury, which are pretty lame boasts these days.
The real shift in tone, though, becomes apparent in T.I.’s eagerness to please: Even with “Swagga Like Us”, Paper Trail hosts as many obligatory guest R&B hookmen as rappers. The conciliatory lover’s rock of “Whatever You Like”, with its near-absence of rapping, spotlights a synth pluck as flirty and debauched as a coked-up celebutante as proof that this “Lollipop” thing is a full-blown trend, not just a one-off WTF. And despite T.I. making an uncomfortable number of veiled threats to bloggers, Just Blaze goes all Rivers Cuomo by cratedigging in YouTube; the internet-approved “Numa Numa” song is now a hook via Rihanna at her most robo. (The song bottoms out on listenability even before you get to the surprisingly unctuous moralizing of its second verse.) And if you justifiably figured “Porn Star” would be the album’s low point, wait til Tip stoops to using a “life is like a…” device so cornball that even Travis beat him to it.
Paper Trail more often succeeds when the positivity sounds more earned than court-ordered. Beyond the fact that “On Top of the World” squashes a Ludacris/T.I. beef that threatened to get even more stupidly dangerous (though T.I. isn’t above going at Shawty Lo on “What Up, What’s Haapnin’”), it’s a perfect pairing that makes you wonder how many awesome collaborations we missed out on. Luda’s verse is infectiously joyous and quotable (“We see Samuel L. Jackson, like, ‘What’s up motherfucker!’”) as T.I. provides the perfect foil with the weariness of someone whose fight will never be over. The same goes for “No Matter What”, the most musically striking track, with Danja’s churchgoing organ sighs and punched-up drums. While T.I. lords over wannabes that want to “get a beat from Toomp and make a hook like shawty,” ending with a line like “I just let go and let God deal with it” may seem deflating, but in the context of a rap persona that owes its success to otherworldly confidence, it’s a telling display of how little control he really feels.
For better or worse, “Swagga Like Us” defines Paper Trail. In the style of those can’t-miss 90s posse cuts, T.I., Lil’ Wayne, Kanye West, and Jay-Z spit over a martial beat that samples M.I.A.’s pop chart infiltrator “Paper Planes”. What could go wrong? Unfortunately, one-upmanship gives way to self-assured competence and Khaled-inspired complacence. T.I. effortlessly bests them all, but in this track, you see how the album manages to be a more detailed manuscript of Tip’s complexity: An impending incarceration has lit a fire under him, triggering an impulse to challenge himself. But T.I. has spent too much of his life fighting to get where he is, and Paper Trail’s desire to play things chill suggests a different sort of trap than we’re used to hearing about from him.
Review By Pitchfork.com
Artist: T.I
Album: Discography
Genre: Rap/ Hip-Hop
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/trapmuzik
-Album List-
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