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