O.C. — A New Dawn: 2nd Phase

Album paired with "Same Moon Same Sun", even known as "1st Phase". Both efforts are released under D.I.T.C. Studios and Slice-of-Spice Records in limited editions. Throughout the course of this album, OC seems not to be inspired, a solo album where it remains isolated in his anonymous flow. He usually pulls out at least one banger from his album, he did it for pretty much his entire career, but here he struggles.

The dark jazzy production helps him — Motif Alumni, Gwop Sullivan and Dark Keys — but OC gasps. The album opens with a disturbing intro on the sample of Nina Simone, "I Feel Good", it continues with the first of many soulful beats with guessed samples, they're the only good things in the first part of the record. They follow interesting soulful/alternative rhythms that aren't exploited by Credle, which seems on the sly: in "Slow Burn" it manages to dampen the enthusiasm of the song and in "Sunday Morning" it's passive.

The level of the product drops when the production doesn't work ("Quick to Jump", "Powerful"), gets up again in "Live Free, Die Hard" — soulful boom bap better than the previous ones on a mediocre piano loop, OC tries to make the banger that has [almost] always done: this is his best outfit so far and is rather off — before a new qualitative fallout under the blows of "Exhale" and "Fair Games": here we've a jazzy soulful boom bap with a touch of pop alternatives, confused rhythm, OC delivers in this mass of confused sounds and with a misinterpreted hook, too many sounds put together, the scratches on the hook here are worth less than nothing, unlistenable, to be skipped.

The album's almost at the end, all that remains is to save what can be saved, there's some decent vibes, bouncy boom bap, where OC honestly delivers ("Ignorance Is Bliss") and pays tribute to the DITC ("Give It Up"). Instead, Showbiz arrives in the final to give him a hand in "Vibe": the vet producer brings out a taut, soulful boom bap, an excellent looped background sample, but OC always delivers uninspired, without energy, out of shape. Here it's glaring, this cut can be a banger under any other East Coast underground artist — I see you Mega — here OC decides not to kill the beat, absurdly. 6/10.