This album was set to release in 2012, but it got indefinitely shelved by either the label or Jay Electronica himself. After 8 years, the album leaked in full and Jay Electronica has seemed to give it the seal of approval, so I feel like it’s worthy to look at this as a Jay Electronica project. This project is definitely closer to what people expected from Jay back then; beautiful instrumentals, lots of samples, high quality rapping and wordplay, and an artsy look into hard to dive into topics. There are definitely songs that feel a bit incomplete, like the mumble verse on “Night of the Roundtable” and the fact that there’s no Kanye verse on “Rough Love”. The mixing is also close to nonexistent across the project, but there are also some jaw droppingly beautiful songs. “Dinner at Tiffany’s” which features these beautiful string sections and some great vocals from Charlotte Gainsbourg. “Life on Mars” is another highlight with this minimal synth sample and Jay rapping about his then girlfriend, Erykah Badu. “Better in Tune” has some personal rapping over this drumless instrumental of strings and pianos that sounds like it should be a gospel song instead of a rap song. Even in this rough state and it being 8 years old, this is still better than most of the hip hop projects currently coming out. If he decides to clean it up and officially release it later, it could easily be the one of the best things to come out this year or any year he chooses to release it in.
The super group comes back together again for a remix project with 11 new features! The songs themselves aren’t that changed from the originals, some even only change by just replacing a verse or two. “The Mighty Tree” gains the most from these changes, as this one has a beat switch not too far into the track. It also features a great verse from Rapsody and jazz legend Herbie Hancock on the piano during the second half of the track. Phonte and Buddy add some great verses to “Sleepless Nights”. Cordae provides a showstopping verse to the already great and laid back protest anthem “Freeze Tag”. “First Responders” has a quality verse from TDE president Punch before a beat switch with Bilal adding some unique vocals over it. Snoop Dogg’s narration throughout the short runtime is nice as well, and climaxes well with his verse on the final track. Every song on here is added to enough to make it a more entertaining song, but it is up to interpretation to see if this is as good of an overall project as the original. Either way, this is a great project worthy of all the high profile names that are attached to it.
Dev is back with another full score after his excellent score for Queen & Slim last year. On this project, Dev lets his classical influences shine a bit more, but still manages to make the project feel like himself. Most of the songs feature these alternating piano melodies over these layers of anything else piano related. It helps create these sonic textures that you can hear a lot of influence from the postmodern era of classical music, Philip Glass specifically. He also brings in some classic Blood Orange moments into these songs, the main aspect being these gigantic synth swells, one example being throughout “Let Yourself Go I”. He even brings in some elements that feel like percussion on “The Last Day”. “He Just Left” has both of those Blood Orange-esque moments, and it helps make the song feel unique to Dev’s style of classical music. The project is also short enough that even though a lot of it sounds similar, it doesn’t wear on the listener. Overall, this is definitely an improvement on Dev’s previous scoring projects, and hopefully he continues to keep being able to score television shows and movies.
Giveon started 2020 better than almost any lesser known artist can, with a feature on a Drake song. He later capitalized early this year with an EP, and he’s back again with a four song project, but there’s really only three full songs on here. He proves once again that even besides his voice, he can write quality R&B songs. It’s worth saying over and over how unique Giveon’s voice is, because there’s no one that sounds exactly like him. Some have compared his voice to Sampha’s but there’s something a bit more powerful behind Giveon’s voice. Each of the three songs is definitely worth a listen. He features up and coming R&B star Snoh Aalegra for the ballad “Last Time”. The single “Stuck On You” is also the best song on the project, as the chorus and the way the song builds help it stand above the other two on here. All that’s left now is to wait for his debut album.
YG has made some of the best west coast gangsta rap of the 2010s, but has started to make more accessible music with his past couple albums. There was hope that he could go back to his extreme gangsta rap style, but this is another more accessible effort from YG. There are still some really great moments on here, starting off with the first couple songs on the album “Jealous” and “Blood Walk” with Lil Wayne and D3szn. “Out on Bail” is the best song on here, as it shows YG bringing back his social consciousness style he used on his first couple projects. He still has some ignorant bangers though, mainly the song “Swag” goes about as one would expect from the title, but is still very enjoyable. Most of the problems with this album comes when the features happen, as most of the features feel like it’s just their song but with a YG feature. Even though this doesn’t come close to his best work, there are still enough enjoyable songs that will keep me coming back and ready for new YG music.
This is Westside Gunn’s Shady Records debut, and the features surely show why. He has features from Black Thought, Busta Rhymes, Jadakiss, two Griselda posse cuts, and two features from the legendary Slick Rick. This is also his third project of the year, and it may not even be the best project of the year for him. There are some really entertaining highlights on here. “Ishkabibble’s” with Black Thought is nothing but super great bars all over the three minute runtime. The outro track with all the Griselda members is yet another great posse cut with all the members. “All Praises” with Boldy James and Jadakiss both bring some quality wordplay in their verses. But songs like “Liz Loves Lugar” with Armani Caesar shows Westside experimenting with accessible love songs. While Armani fits perfectly with the song, Westside comes across really cringy and creepy. There’s no denying that Westside Gunn is a great rapper, but this still isn’t the project that will get people’s attention.
This is a unique pop and electronic album with every track produced by AG Cook. Jonsi is a part of the Icelandic post-rock duo Sigur Ros, but this album doesn’t have almost any rock influences. Everything stems from various sounds of electronic and pop music. “Wildeye” features this constantly mutating, electronic banger that sounds straight out of the pc music camp. The operatic and shimmering vocal processing on “Sumario sem aldrei kom” sounds as if Bon Iver made electronic music instead of folk. The title track is equal parts beautiful as it is glitchy and experimental. The whole project is filled with songs like these, slow and shimmering electronic ballads that many people will get a lot of enjoyment out of. This project may not be for everyone, but people that do like this type of music will almost certainly love this project.
It only took almost 10 months, but this is finally TDE’s first project of 2020, and Reason came through with another quality project. This project is a bit more focused on bangers instead of introspective tracks, but there still manages to be a good amount of introspection and storytelling like on “Windows Cry” and “Slow Down”. Tracks like those are where he thrives the best, but he still manages to have quite a bit of great rapping outside of the storytelling on here. “I Can Make It” with Rapsody features some high quality wordplay from each of the artists. He brings on JID and Isaiah Rashad for the mellow “Extinct” and each person gives a great performance that lives up to the hype that the song had created beforehand. There are the bass heavy singles as well like “Flick it Up” and “Sauce” with Ab-Soul and Vince Staples respectively, all of which have some exceptional bars and flows on these songs. There is a part of me that misses the extreme hunger that Reason had on There You Have It, but this is still another excellent project.
Various Artists - Reprise: A Roc Nation Album
Roc Nation put together an album of new protest anthems from their artists to help raise money for a few different foundations, and they still manage to make the project musically enjoyable as well. “No More Teardrops” shows Vic Mensa at his absolute best, political hip hop with a myriad of influences ranging from rock to gospel music. Rapsody tries out a new sound with “12 Problems” which is an aggressive trap banger about police brutality specifically. Sebastian Kole and Jason Evigan bring a soulful anthem called “Second Line” which features Sebastian singing his heart out during the chorus. “By Any Means” by Jorja Smith brings some beauty to this project, as even though she is still talking about many important and deep topics, this might be the best vocal performance she’s ever given. The project is worth a listen just for the money that will go to the foundations, but it’s also musically enjoyable as well.
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