Onyx — Lost Treasures

If we don't consider "I Can't Breathe", Onyx (Sticky Fingaz & Fredro Starr) deliver a mediocre album that hurts the group's legacy.

The production recalls simple and minimal jazzy sounds, skeletal, sometimes hardcore ("Black Hoodie Rap"), dark ("Think U Iller Than Me"), close to trap ("Face Off") or ballad ("Celebrate"). Despite a perpetually raw and technically dirty delivery, the rapping of the duo sounds tasteless and lacking in energy and after twelve pieces I haven't yet understood why they're yelling. The disc pays a lot of unforgivable commercial mistakes at a high price: if we leave aside the uninspired rhythms and the lackluster delivery, the few bridges are mediocre, while the hooks are blades and sung, also the guests don't help: Layzie Bone rips "Going in for the Kill", the others are inferior here, but then he makes an unlistenable lame hook in "Celebrate". The others aren't noteworthy: "Gangsta Buster" presents a decent jazzy rhythm with a good piano, but the drum machine asphalts everything, skinny and exhausting. The syncopated delivery of the performers here isn't incisive, the two guests sound poorly, it follows a Mad Lion's roughly inappropriate reggaesque hook, then the last two minutes are inexplicably instrumental.

"I Can't Breathe" is the highest point of the record and it has nothing to do with the rest of the project. Made in 2016, it's a socio-conscious political cut created by the actor Samuel L. Jackson, about reacting to racism and police brutality against African Americans. Simple functional chorus of the actor and Sticky Fingaz, simple light jazzy rhythm, first rough verse of Sticky Fingaz, then smoothness, clean, clear and calm of Talib, dope; Mad Lion offers an angry, almost shouted and deadly reggae verse, following Brother Jay with an honest and fluent delivery. To close the games there's KRS: his verse is hard, powerful, energetic, smooth, clear, proves to be still relevant.

Rating: 5.5/10.