In the year that can mark a new peak of mafia rap, a sub-genre of the gangsta born, raised and proliferated on the East Coast, before a physiological fall, with the music market already completely over-saturated with publications all similar, Boldy James comes out mid-year with a gangsta rap album. When a hip-hop artist publishes a work that can be cataloged in this genre, it's necessary to turn our gaze to the pillars of the past: presenting a jazzy production and soulful vibes, the points of reference are respectively "Reasonable Doubt", first work of Jay-Z, and "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...", Raekwon's debut. You cannot escape from here.
The album was born twenty years earlier, when Boldy James enters Sterling Toles' recording studio, accompanying the younger brother of a local rapper with whom Toles was working. This rapper, allows Boldy James to record a track: from that day, he returns to record for all the years to follow, but the first tracks that will come to compose this record are made around 2007. The tracks are still pretty raw: drums, some samples and the rapper's voice are the only elements that form them. Three years later, Boldy managed to make a name for himself on the circuit and his commitments forced him to stop recording the album: Sterling Toles remained with an unfinished project and over the following years, he brought about twenty different musicians to record for the album, obtaining enough material to be able to work and refine the project. It takes more years, then Toles, who unlike RZA, managed to strenuously defend this product from the water that threatened it, delivers the final version to the rapper, who still wants to put some rhyme on a couple of tracks that have remained instrumental: eight years after the last time, Boldy returns to record for the album and completes it. It takes another two years to get released.
Through the "ConCreature", state of mind of the place where he grew up and with which he also identifies himself, Boldy James enters the listener in his streets, takes him to his corners, to sell his ounces, to live his hours, trampling his dead soldiers, facing his problems. The MC represents Detroit and his neighborhood, with raw, vivid, dark, personal themes, with violent and frantic lyricism, and a crisp, clean, flowing, dominant delivery. Sterling Toles' production is the best of the year among hip-hop albums: layered jazzy rhythms mixed with dense live instrumentation, along with soulful choirs and samples, the soundscape is complex and impressive for the cleanliness and beauty of his work. Each cut is fantastic, the peak being "Mommy Dearest (A Eulogy)", simply one of the best songs of the year.
Over the course of this flawless album, Boldy James & Sterling Toles are both perfect and leave several quotes and tributes scattered around to some of the East Coast's best artists, keeping the record on the street, is dedicated to friends, to the few survivors who they lived, like Jay-Z's, but, at the same time, managing to give it a cinematic flavor like Raekwon's: the final result is cold, calculated, overwhelming and lacerating. Heavy. Beautiful.
High quality gangsta rap. Coming from his previous or next effort, I would never have said that Boldy James could have released the hip-hop album of the year: he surprises wonderfully, delivering a record that can hardly be matched in the future.
Rating: 9/10.
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