After three years, Memphis Bleek returns to release a CD, which coincides with his third studio album. Just Blaze is the main producer, along with Kanye West, Scott Storch, Robert "Shim" Kirkland, Coptic, TT, E Bass, D-Roy, Mr.B, Darryl "Digga" Branch and Zukhan. Guests include friend Jay-Z, State Property rappers Beanie Sigel, Freeway and Young Chris, Trick Daddy, TI, Livin Proof, Donell Jones, Latif, Nate Dogg, Rell, Geda K, MOP and Lil Cease of Junior MAFIA.
The first track has a title that seems like an advert for his label, affiliated with Jay-Z's: producer Coptic brings out a melodic, cheerful, festive and triumphant jazzy boom bap, with cheerful strings, Memphis Bleek proves to be in form and features a good smooth flow clearly inspired by his mentor Carter. Also in this track, as in his previous efforts, he looks like the copy of him in this intro route of "Vol. 1" (and "2"). Jay-Z quickly comes to his protégé's aid on a tight, heavy jazz cut of Just Blaze, still triumphant, bouncy, mainstream, sadly not very good. Bleek starts off strong and regular with a solid verse and a hardcore, inspired rapping style, Hova closes, clearly better than him without effort and with an excellent flow.
Just Blaze also produces the next one with Trick Daddy and T.I.: the song was born with clear commercial intentions, it's no coincidence that it was chosen as the second single to launch the disc. The rhythm is radio-oriented, jazz, essential and simple, incredibly catchy, there's a catchy hook and good rapping. In the notes of my first listenings I noted that the author went quite blandly and with a mediocre style here, while the others didn't stand out much. After years however, I feel that the performance of the performers is good for a piece destined for the charts, overall, I feel like it's a good mainstream pop rap cut. Just Blaze doesn't get out from behind the keyboards and remains for the third time in a row, in a song that sees Memphis Bleek duet with Freeway, one of the offensive tips of Jay-Z's group State Property. After making a pop beat, Blaze provides a beat for a street cut, demonstrating his versatility behind the keyboards: the rhythm of the previous song "Round Here" is as clean as this one is very dirty, tense, dusty, beautiful, supported by tight strings and a frenetic piano, elements that make the production better than previous beats. Bleek and especially Freeway are at home on this excellent, jazzy and essential soundscape, the Philadelphia emcee ravages the landscape and gives Memph another highlight on the record, great job.
State Property decides to support the project in its central part, also contributing in the following pieces starting from "We Ballin'", where Young Chris comes down to the mic together with the other guest Livin Proof (not the duo linked to DJ Premier). Scott Storch creates a mainstream, melodic and catchy rhythm, with a Middle Eastern flavor in Neptunes style: whispered weak hook, light and functional, Bleek drops a couple of decent bars, the others are fine without infamy or praise. "Hypnotic" is yet another beat created by Just Blaze: the rhythm is melodic and effective, of good quality, light, essential and smooth jazz boom bap, left to breathe. The first verse is reserved for Beanie Sigel, third State Property rapper in three songs, he's calm and velvet on a truly hypnotic rhythm, and one of Blaze's best works in the early 2000s. Memphis Bleek's contribution is average and not memorable, quite regular and still inferior to the others. Jay-Z closes, clearly superior to Malik, with an excellent quiet and dope verse. This is followed by just two minutes of beat, flute and almost imperceptible soul chorus in the background for the outro, beautiful. This is the best song on the album and curiously also the longest, exceeding six minutes.
Kanye West creates a gorgeous, essential and well-made jazz boom bap, which uses a good soul sample from Michael Jackson. In this pop radio choice Bleek presents honest rapping and Donell Jones scores a good hook over excellent production. "War" is one of the worst produced tracks in Just Blaze's career: simplistic, annoying, bouncy, cheesy and cheap rhythm aiming for the club in this rare Memphis Bleek solo in which the boy has a weak, poor and generic delivery, buried by a poor functional hook and from trying to fill the hole with deep, slippery synths.
The album gets back on its feet with choice number nine, "My Life", credit to the guys in production, TT and E Bass: the duo invents a splendid soundscape, wonderful soulful jazz rhythm, soulful hook by Latif, Bleek still leaves something to be desired in the rapping department with his mild style but the track goes on worthily, despite the excessive length at five minutes. "Need Me in Your Life" is a clear attempt to sell copies even on the West Coast, Roc-A-Fella executives always try this type of album and they have already done it in Malik Cox's previous LPs: Nate Dogg appears as the guest of honor on a carpet designed for him and created by the duo D-Roy & Mr. B. Light jazz beat, simple and essential, tightened with a sprinkling of g-funk, the beat is melodic and sublime, Nate Dogg performs a light dope neo-soul hook and steals the show from Bleek, despite the boy showing off a good rap.
Beanie Sigel and Jay-Z return to support the main rapper on "Murda, Murda", as already done twenty minutes earlier in "Hypnotic", this time on a production credited to Scott Storch. The beatmaker screws up again and delivers a cheap, sleazy beat, creating an annoying, indecent, simplistic and heavy musical carpet. You can't ask Bleek anything about such low level productions, Beans and Hova try to save this bag of garbage from its natural destination, the dump, but they can't do it, it was prohibitive. Choice number twelve sees the writing Just Blaze behind the keyboards, but if it had said Swizz Beatz you wouldn't have noticed the difference, because music sucks: for Bleek's third solo cut, Blaze delivers some simplistic and annoying funky production, bouncy and scandalous that sounds like one of his rejects, it's simply unlistenable. This is a shame because for once Memph had delivered with a decent rapping style, unfortunately, the hook with the synthesized bridge and the pseudo-siren to confuse and suppress Bleek's singing hook don't help.
MOP gets to disintegrate the record on “Hood Muzik”, over a production by Darryl “Digga” Branch: good tense and dark jazz boom bap, with very deep synthesizers in the background, Bleek begins his verse in a more forceful version than usual, dare I say "hardcore", then Bleek's hook announcing and launching the MOP. The two boys Billy Danze and Fizzy Womack snatch the microphone from Bleek's hands and destroy the beat with their style, pure healthy and raw ignorant rap, hardcore, dirty, smoothness, underground, fearfully determined. They destroy the track. In the next song, guest singer Rell tries to get Bleek out of trouble with a soulful hook over a simple and light soulful jazz boom bap produced by E Bass and TT, where Bleek delivers with a good slow style, being comfortable in this ballad. "Do It All Again" is just enough choice: over Zukhan's light and soulful boomy boom bap, Rell sings well on the hook on the last track of the album, which is another ballad, Bleek shows up at rapping and Lil Cease of Junior MAFIA with a mediocre performance and among them Geda K with a weak style.
The next two songs are bonus. "1, 2 Y'all" is a posse: tight, lucid, annoying jazz rhythm, skeletal and simplistic, produced by E Bass and Robert "Shim" Kirkland, with cheap drums and a haunting loop, this is yet another rap track that uses ESG's "UFO" as a sample that you'll soon forget about. Memph's intro that opens with arrogance on this dystopian ghostly beat, then Geda K drops a verse with good fluency and technique, Lil Cease is a guest for the second time in a row together with Geda K and brings the track back down to earth while this one wanted to fly among the best moments of the album, despite a questionable rhythm. Jay-Z vastly better than the others, he tries to raise the level with a velvet, clean, technical, good verse. The album is closed by "R.O.C.", Bleek's last solo over a simplistic, tense, bouncy, economical and essential jazz production, partly annoying, designed by Just Blaze: tight soul sample, mediocre and almost shouty delivery from Memphis Bleek, bad solo cut.
The album is a clear improvement for Memphis Bleek from the point of view of lyricism and rapping, it's more mature, more aggressive, more competent. He returns three years after his last effort and his name in the game has cooled, both because other heirs arrived to the Roc-A-Fella chair and they have been established with the emergence of the in-label group State Property, both because the rapper himself hasn't done much to keep his name alive, taking part in a handful of records as a guest during this period.
The guy can't handle a solo album, which is why there are features on all but four of the tracks. Published by Roc-A-Fella and his label Get Low, distributed by Universal, the album received the attention of much of the specialized critics, who welcomes it as a positive effort. Bleek's third CD is also doing well in the charts, finishing in the top 40 of the pop chart and at the top of the rap chart for the third time, becoming one of the best-selling albums of the season. With 73 minutes of material and 17 skit-free tracks, it's the best album of his career, recommended for fans of the rapper and Roc-A-Fella, negligible listening for the casual listener.
Rating: 6.4/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment