Debut of Tahmell Griffin, rapper from Long Island, New York. Son of Rakim. Yes, that Rakim. I might as well stop writing now.
The tape was inexplicably ignored by practically all insiders and fans, and if I hadn't listened to Intell's debut, I wouldn't have gotten here. The few who have talked about the matter are also divided on the age of the author: ten years of difference, so I don't dare to say which is the correct one.
Musically, the record splits equally between boom bap and melodic trap. The production is made up of decent elements, however, these are never really good and are at times as bad as the dominant snare drum in the sixth song, building a sound that is overall very generic and never memorable. The disc is made up of battle rap with some sprinkling of generic topics such as drugs, crime, girls, representing the city, reference to the pandemic, etc., and seems to suffer from a lyrical point of view: the texts are elementary and simplistic, they seem unpaired single lines lined up one after the other and much can be improved, from puns to tributes to other artists, passing through quotes to the father to those to popular culture. Overall, it's an acceptable attempt of 10 tracks in 35 minutes, the rapper has a good voice, but more personality on the mic would give his bars more weight.
Rating: 5/10.
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