Reviews
Ab-Soul: Do What Thou Wilt – Ab-Souls“ Do What Thou Wilt” is the sophomore project for the T. D. E mainstay, and in comparison to his first project this is leaps and bounds better, encompassing witty wordplay, sublime production and thought provoking ideas that remind me a bit of Ras Kass. Ab shows that he isn’ t a fluke and is not to be messed with on this project with melodic riffs on some songs and a get up and go attitude at the beginning of the album. It’ s truly a better representation of what the Carson MC is capable of; I mean some of the lyrics on this project were god like and extremely interesting. However, with every great project there is always room to improve, one of my main gripes with this project and Ab Soul is how he conveys ideas. His complexity at times is exhausting and somewhat annoying; in addition, the album length is unnecessarily long and with soul rapping in such a slow manner it seems like you’ re listening to the album for what seems like an eternity. But, overall this is a good project with a long length, lyrics and inconsistency.
MM
D. R. A. M.: Big Baby D. R. A. M. – I must say, he chose the best intro track for the project.“ Get It Myself” displays his uniquely raspy, breathy, and vibrato filled vocals and how soulful he is naturally. In actuality, this is the underlying tone of the project despite the various genre influences the tracks have individually. Overall, modernized soul is how I’ d describe his sound as his content is about the turn up essentially and has a rap flow often that’ s alongside the harmonies in the tracks. Even more so, his production is a mixture of live instrumentation and digital imprints. D. R. A. M. gives us a seamless debut album by introducing us to his unique fusion of the old, the new, and various genres and I love what he’ s doing. Big Baby D. R. A. M. goes hard from start to finish. KW
King Khali: The Dream Tape – King Khali is an Atlanta rapper via San Antonio( or is it the other way around?) that has a lot to say, and he can actually translate those thoughts into bars. The budding MC doesn’ t have his sound yet, nor the equipment to get him there, but he has an exceptional capability of portraying his emotion and thoughts without coming off as boring or sappy. He knows some of his weakness, and he presents them to you from the jump on this mixtape. But if you stick in there and make it through to the end, you will find that King Khali is the most relatable rapper that you’ ve heard in a long time. His first mixtape, The Dream Tape needs work meshing as a body of work, but the content is ambitious and earnest, which is why I have yet to remove it from my phone.
FRJ
The Dream: Love You To Death EP – In my opinion, the music on“ Love You to Death” wasn’ t as good as the music that Dream has made in the past. It wasn’ t bad, it just wasn’ t his best. I found this album to be on the boring side to be frank. That may be because there weren’ t many songs to begin with, so there wasn’ t much variety. The music all sounded similar in a way. Even though The Dream isn’ t the best singer, he usually attempts to go all out with the vocals, and it works for him. On this album, it all sounded like he was trying to keep it safe. I think the adventurous, not-so-perfect vocals that The Dream has presented in the past stood out. On“ Love You to Death”, the tracks were all mediocre.
AB