Xmas record that suffers, suffers a lot. Beats never guessed, functional hooks, guests picked up by force from State Property, never fit. Tek (of Smif-n-Wessun) is doing well. Freeway delivers raw and aggressive, but when he seems to be able to reach and save the disk, this is already gone, lost.
The record is open by a boom bap jazzy with heavy and annoying piano keys, tense rhythm, very dark, with Christmas bells in the background and aggressive delivery of Free. On the same previous beat, with a good soulful sample looped in the background, in "This Is It" the rhythm falls down and a cheerful and simplistic, bouncy, tight, essential jazzy boom bap arrives. Good soulful sample looped in the background on the hook. The third track, "Let It Go", has a simplistic, bouncy, cheap, poor, weak boom bap with functional jazzy bridge, Free's aggressive, Saint Sann and Gillie da Kid aren't good.
It follows a disturbing/bleak boom bap jazzy on DJ Self short skit. "Steve Young Jerry Rice" presents a mainstream pop beat, skeletal, simplistic and annoying, where Free doesn't save the cut among Sir Wooda and Adrien Broner, with forgettable verses. "With or Without" has a boom bap jazzy disturbing, skeletal, poor, cheap, weak, tense, gloomy: pop-R&B chorus, then Neef (not exactly the best that State Property could offer) starts rapping weakly on the beat, he seems almost dropping verses out of boredom, just because he's there, paid but listless, Freeway is better than him as usual.
The next choice is a very short skit on the previous beat, then "Roc Reloaded": boom bap light and a little bit dark, difficult to perceive, Free drops with raspy, rough, aggressive, dark flow. Chorus spoken, then Neef returns with his mediocre style, like an average cat, cannot accelerate and here he could, the beat tries to help him with the addition of a skeletal boom bap, it doesn't change much. Functional hook, Chris pulls out a mediocre verse, choked flow, syncopated, weak, the beat doesn't seem to help him, it annihilate the Young Gunz rapper, it buries him. Memphis Bleek is the kid with more experience, but he'll never emerge in a weak posse track like this, where even Peedi Crakk seems one of the finest emcees. This track tries to relive the State Property and the glorious rich days of prime Roc-A-Fella Records. The last cut is "Hol Fam": boom bap jazzy simple, light, with well placed strings in the background and Christmas bells, good rapping by Free and Tek from Smif-n-Wessun with Rasheed Wallace and Iman.
EP full of guests that doesn't present a Freeway exactly in shape and is negligible to the casual listener.
Rating: 5.5/10.
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