Among the most popular Freeway albums and among the most critically undervalued of the decade. After signing with Lil Wayne's Cash Money, Freeway switches to Rhymesayers to release this product in collaboration with Jake One. Pretty amazing boom bap jazzy-soul production by Jake One, lyrics around gangsta/braggadocio themes, solid, coherent LP.
Freeway runs effortlessly on this production. However, there are some missteps: "Microphone Killa", "Follow My Moves", and "Money". The latter has a beat that wants to be glossy but is simple tarnish by an excessive layer of dirt. Porter to add value, Sparks to bring it back grounded, get it off the pedestal and take it back to clean up the sisters' chambers. Soul/R&B background that'd be better exploited, here's wasted. In "Microphone Killa", Jake One provides a West Coast production, Young Chris isn't good, but Birdman in "Follow My Moves" try to ruin the whole record with a rough touch over a dirty boom bap coming from the landfill, in a messy and tiring song.
The rest of the album shines everywhere, with some of the greatest track ever by Freeway. "One Foot In" it's a kind of classic track, "One Thing" is brilliantly packaged, it looks like a 9th Wonder cut, with a good verse by Raekwon, "The Product" is one of the strongest cut of the album, thanks to a perfect jazzy boom bap, piano kindly in background, the beat remember a Premier or better a Ski Beatz from late nineties: Freeway runs smoothly over this beautiful soundscape, and tries to annihilate the beat with a winding delivery and a flow sometimes syncopated. Bun B kills everyone with a slow, loose, dope flow in "Sho' Nuff", amazing light boom bap by Jake One, mesmerizing, while "Free People" boasts another wonderful production, sounds like another tribute to the best hip-hop music of the nineties ever to come out of New York: the Philadelphia emcee keeps it tight with a regular style, there's a good background soul, kick and drum make an appearance to say goodbye just as the song's leaving the station. The album is closed by an authentic masterpiece, "Stimulus Outro", with homages to the whole State Property.
Freeway succeeds and creates its own classic album, a collaboration effort that comes late, when by now the man from Philadelphia seems to have lost the attention of critics and part of his niche of fans, on the sixth studio album also considering his records with his group. The album charted its way into the top 70 of the Billboard 200, the top 20 hip-hop albums and number five independent disks. Released under the independent Rhymesayers Entertainment, the record allows him to once again gain critical attention, garnering universal acclaim from insiders placing his album on lists of the best hip-hop projects of the season, meeting the same favorable opinion of the fans, who have been waiting for this work by Freeway for years.
Rating: 8.2/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment