Collaborative album between Massachusetts rapper al.divino and LA producer DJ Muggs. For the rapper this is the fifth effort of the season, while the West Coast producer is the album number 17. Estee Nack and RLX are the only guests on the tape.
"Jansport" is a good intro, boasting a jazzy rhythm with slow, pounding drum, and raw, slow delivery of al.divino. The MC maintains this style in the following tune, jazzy midtempo boom bap with good sample and elegant piano in the background, the repetitive chorus ruins the track. The third choice features a downtempo drum accompanied by a melodic female sample, to support the rapper's slow bars. The title track has a generic rhythm and weak guitar riff, al.divino's delivery is slow and decent. The tune goes particularly unnoticed, I went back to specifically listen to this track a second and a third time, and it went unnoticed again and again. Estee Nack provides a good smooth and fluid performance on a dark production, with distant drum downtempo: al.divino sounds cumbersome, slow and raw, while Nack kills the cut.
Track six features a dark rhythm with distant slow drum and discrete samples, decent raw MC delivery, providing an inspired, raw, hardcore and flowing performance in "Landslide", where he seems to go better than the previous tracks, on a beat tense and dark with tight drum. A short experimental cut follows, with sci-fi samples and synthesized delivery, then Muggs returns to his typical dark sound, with slow and pounding drum machine in order to support the raw and hardcore bars spit out by the rapper. Around half an hour, an inexplicable slip of Muggs arrives: he brings out a quite mediocre beat, with cheap drum and annoying sample, al.divino isn't inspired, RLX sounds better, slow, syncopated, discreet. The tightly looped sample ruins the whole piece, an incredibly bad choice by the producer. The tape is closed by "Singapore", decent rhythm with distant slow drum, tense and dark samples, typical delivery of the rapper.
11 pieces, about half an hour of listening. Muggs' production is obscure and at times forgettable and generic, while al.divino delivers uninspired, certainly not at his best. The project could pleasantly entertain drug rap / mafia rap fans, but I don't personally think it's a necessary listening.
Highlights: "Money on Ya Head", "Jabba Jaws", "Landslide".
Rating: 6.6/10.
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