Royce da 5'9" — Success Is Certain

When Ryan Daniel Montgomery aka Royce da 5'9" got the whole set of beats wrong for the seventh time (I also take into count the albums with Slaughterhouse, where he mostly decided the beats) in nine years, well, man, you can guess it, people weren't happy. The fans weren't happy. Sony executives were happy. The critics were happy, for some reason. Hip-hop fans weren't happy and you can see it. The beat of "Legendary", what to say, I have paused it now while I'm writing, if I hit the play button again, it makes me laugh: it's not something you expect to be in a hip-hop album. And the same can be said for all the other ten beats, more or less. They're provided by Eminem, Futuristiks, Luis Resto, Streetrunner, Sarom, Nottz, Mr. Porter, The Alchemist and DJ Premier.

Apart from the Gang Starr Legend, the others are more or less the same guys who bury every Royce solo record with their cheap and senseless rhythms, they always make bad productions, every time. The game doesn't change in his new album, it's very difficult to listen to. The best musical choice is present in "Second Place", a Christopher Martin production, and in any case, it sounds generic and bland, it's a weak rhythm. I thought that, at least, the remix of "Writer's Block", still made by Preemo, was good, but no. The other producers aren't doing well, from Mr. Porter to Eminem, even Alchemist, at the time of writing, he was rediscovered as a talented artist, but in the late 2010s that's the kind of beats he did.

It's useless to discuss Royce's rapping, the boy knows how to do his braggadocio, there's no doubt. I don't care about the guests — Travis Barker, Marshall Mathers, Kid Vishis, Nottz and Adonis — over these beats. The album is released by Gracie Productions and is distributed by Orchard, an independent label affiliated with Sony: the album is one of the rapper's biggest commercial results, hitting box 25 on the Billboard 200, the top ten rap album, and third place among independent projects. Too bad that "Death Is Certain", his darkest product to which this same album refers in the title and cover, remains his finest studio LP. 3/10.