Week 4

5/11/2021

Mick Jenkins – Elephant In The Room

This was a really enjoyable listen. I’ve been meaning to get more into Mick Jenkins’ music, and I feel like this was a good place to start (after hearing Water(s) already). Mick comes straight out of the gate on this record with crazy rhyme schemes and hard-hitting bars in the first song. This intro track hit me like a damn freight train; not what I expected at all but something I definitely enjoyed. The album relaxes and seems to grow into itself from the next track forward. The vibes on this record are immaculate. It’s filled with chilled, smooth, lo-fi beats which are intersected with Mick’s sharp delivery and bar-heavy lyricism. ‘Scottie Pippen’ fits perfectly with this vibe, allowing me to enjoy it even more than when I heard it as a single last week. I could honestly listen to this kind of rap all day. Chilled vibes and great lyrics are basically exactly what I want in a hip-hop track. It’s not all just clever wordplay and clever standalone lines in here; there is a fair amount of him talking some real shit, whether that be introspective or political. I feel like I should single out ‘Reflection’ as a very unique and clever song as he ‘reflects’ on himself in third person by staring at his reflection. It isn’t my favourite musically, but the substance is fantastic. It’s very easy to drift away to this album ad not really pay attention, I guess that could be taken either in the positive or the negative. This album is by no means ground-breaking or boundary-pushing but is a fun listen and can be replayed in most situations.

Favourite songs: The Valley Of…, Things You Could Die For…, Scottie Pippen, Gucci Tried To Tell Me, Speed Racer, Is This Cigarettes, Rug Burn

Score: 7.5/10

Joyner Lucas – Duck Duck Goose

To start, before I even listened to this, the title didn’t fill me with a great deal of hope for this track. Let’s start with the positives. The beat is pretty cool as the synths in the back of the mix add a nice extra layer to an otherwise fairly ordinary trap-style beat. There are a few cool bars in this but nothing too crazy. If I were to just listen to this without listening to the lyrics or acknowledging any concept, I would probably enjoy it. His flow is pretty hard, and it meshes well with the beat. But the lyrics are just so lackluster. There are a few immediately questionable bars in this song, starting with the fact that he gets a natural high due to his ADHD so doesn’t need drugs thing. Then the scheme with the ‘duck duck goose’ was as corny as I expected. Another bar about leukemia was also kinda weird. But this whole track is basically to do with his dominance in the rap game. Now, I’m not sure what kind of people Joyner surrounds himself with, but to me and the general hip-hop community, I am still yet to see this dominance of any kind. Whilst I don’t necessarily agree with all of the hate he gets; this guy has been clowned so many times that I see more clowning than praise directed his way. The main issue I have with Joyner is that I can see that he is a very capable rapper, but he just never seems to fulfil his potential. Like there wasn’t a single bar on this thing that really caught my attention (in a good way), which is a great shame.

MF DOOM & Madlib - Madvillainy

Yes, you read that right. It's been a fairly dry week for hip-hop so we have a classic album first-time listen and review. I've never really been able to get into MF DOOM's music so I thought why not start at the most mind-boggling place possible. Makes sense, right? I'm not exaggerating when I say that I think this album has changed the way I listen to hip-hop forever. It's incredible. It's insane. It's confusing. It's even borderline impossible. Let's just start with the production. The first of many "holy shit" moments in this review. Madlib has made this album sound like a whole-ass supervillain movie. The way he finds and chops samples, breaks the beats, and just create the perfect atmosphere is ridiculous and it should not be controversial to say that he is one of the greatest producers of all time. I was already familiar with him through his work with Freddie Gibbs, but the beats he produces here are so different to what I'd heard before it just escalates his greatness so much more. The vocal samples/skits give me proper Wu-Tang vibes, obviously produced by RZA (another all-time great producer). And the range of beats on this album, jesus, it's crazy. No one beat sounds alike but they all have a similar theme it's mad. They fit perfectly with DOOM's laid-back, sometimes lazy-sounding rapping. I'm not sure I can fully express the skill of DOOM's rapping in this short review as it's like nothing I've ever heard before. Let me put it this way, after listening to this album (with my mind being insanely broken), I literally could not listen to another rap song for a good hour as nothing could compare with what I had just heard. I've never heard a rapper rhyme like this, for starters. The dude rhymes whole sentences together on multiple occasions like he's just making his breakfast, it sounds that easy. Some rhyme schemes literally go on for half a verse and it's not a simple scheme. It's usually the most ridiculously convoluted scheme you could possibly think of. He is able to do this as he just says things differently to the average person. The words he uses and how he arranges those words to rhyme together is astounding. This guy has mastered the English language. It's rare you ever hear him say a regular sentence like 'I sat on the couch'. No, he'll find some weird and wonderful way to say it as if his brain is a thesaurus. AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE!! It isn't like he's just rhyming and saying nothing. Each line has about three different meanings and I couldn't catch most of them even with the lyrics up. A lot of it is braggadocio talk, but there is the odd case, like on 'Strange Ways' where he talks some real shit. This is one of the best politically-charged rap songs I've ever heard, and the regular listener would barely be able to understand it. This album can't be done justice with one or two listens, it needs multiple as I know I will get more out of it each time. I remember most of the first listen was just me sitting there confused by the sheer chaosity of this album. But it's genius. The beats aren't insanely hard hitting and DOOM's flow isn't either, but as Jon Denton nicely put, DOOM's rhymes serve as an instrument. With that, another great thing about this album is that you don't even have to try and dissect the lyrics or wrack your brain trying to figure the concepts out. You can just listen to this album musically and enjoy it because it's so laid-back. And the rhymes just sound so good, without even knowing what they mean or what is said. This album is so versatile, I don't have one bad thing to say about it. I'm mind blown. Also, sorry this one was so long, but I felt like I had to do the album justice in the review. ALL CAPS WHEN YOU SAY THE MAN NAME. RIP.

Favourite songs: Accordion, Raid, Curls, Money Folder, Figaro, Operation Lifesaver, Fancy Clown, All Caps, Rhinestone Cowboy

Score: 10/10 + classic