Sixth solo studio album for Royce da 5'9", Detroit rapper part of the groups Slaughterhouse, Bad Meets Evil, and PRhyme. The rhythm set is provided by eleven different producers, including Mr. Porter, major author with four choices, S1, Epikh, J. Rhodes, G Koop, AntMan Wonder, Jake One, Nottz, DJ Khalil and Daniel Smith. The guests are Melanie Rutherford, Pusha T, Rick Ross, Mr. Porter, Tiara, Loren W. Oden and K. Young. Released by his Bad Half Records and distributed by an independent label linked to Universal, the album becomes his major commercial success, hits the top 25 of the pop chart and becomes is his first solo record to reach the peak of hip-hop / rnb chart.
It starts very well with "Tabernacle", a personal cut that describes his December 29th on a dope production (thanks to S1 & J. Rhodes) and with one of its finest flows. It's really difficult to follow, being one of the best songs of the rap season. It doesn't matter, because after that there's the very strong "Pray": four stanzas on a fresh and soul production by Mr. Porter & G Koop, the rapper delivers with an energetic, confident and flowing style. The third song is "Hard", among the least appreciated of the edition by the public: Nickel Nine spits bars on a triumphant and good rhythm of AntMan Wonder, and is a continuation of random, braggadocio bars. The concept isn't very original, the boy spends most of his time paying homage to other artists; it takes a back seat the fact that the song is, above all, an extension of a couple of those lines, I don't know if you can remember it, "this album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin'", in the intro of "Juicy".
There are several pieces here built with such ideas. When you think the record could easily be one of the best of the season, Royce suddenly runs out of arguments and spends a good deal of his time in this four song going against a Billboard list of the ten best rappers ever which as a list itself isn't completely bad, but it's something that was fine in 1985, after it lost sense, you can't contain the "best MCs" in ten names. And, anyway, you can't take it seriously, "Starter Coast" gets lost in it and casually pays homage to 2Pac multiple times. In "Wait", Montgomery goes on to battle rap and quotes over a triumphant soul soundscape from Jake One. We are about twenty minutes from the start: Royce would like to make a top-tier album, he would like to release that kind of classic album, he just doesn't have the lyrics to do it on this project. Or he doesn't have enough to make an hour-long LP. Maybe halfway through the time, with a couple of socio-conscious and political fillers it would work just fine. I don't know.
He still has the flow to take the tracks home. In any case, it feels like he struggles to bring out lyrics that aren't totally bad like the ones on the Slaughterhouse albums and that can live up to his best work, which is also the last album, the one with Premier. It arrives the first of three skits in five tracks, all pretty bland and useless (good contribution by Melanie Rutherford, for what it's worth), that show you that the guy has no idea how to fill the belly of the album, follow some uninspired tracks in which he always has to place some random misogynist bars amidst the usual tributes to the best hip-hop artists. Nottz does a nice job on "Shine", delivering an elegant soul rhythm. DJ Khalil produces "Flesh" and "Misses", he also does a good job, his choices are good support for Nickel Nine rap.
In "Dope!", DJ Pain builds one of the best beats on the record, much of the credit goes to Cortex, a group that is continually plundered by rap every year and still too little talked about, they're fantastic. "Huit Octobre 1971" is one of their best works, in general, I would say that all "Troupeau Blue" is commendable. Great album. The rhythm is there, the rapper's text is one of his least inspired ever, it's messy, excessively offensive, repetitive, monotonous. It doesn't work, sadly, and it's a waste of a dope beat (no puns intended). "America" boasts Royce da 5'9" at his best: socio-political cut on a fantastic production of Epikh & S1, delivered with a smooth, focused, excellent flow. Pusha T & Rick Ross are the first guest rappers of the project and they introduce themselves to the song number fourteen, which coincides with the title track: Mr. Porter offers what is his best rhythm in the LP, a solution formed by dry, midtempo, dirty and dusty drum machine together with an enveloping female melodic loop.
As already later in Royce's previous work, the lead rapper leaves the first verse to a respectable guest, Push, who opens the song boasting a confident, clear, dope flow. The MC of Motor City in the second verse, with a dynamic, fresh, excellent style, before the last verse, delivered by Rick Ross with a raw, rough, dirty, good delivery. Tiara & Mr. Porter are the guests of "Quiet", a song with a different rhythm than the rest made by Denaun himself, dancehall vibes. "Gottaknow" is a confirmation that Epikh & S1 really know how to make rhythms: boom bap, drum downtempo, good melodic samples, snare drum that roams freely for a few moments, melodic synths for a few more moments, smooth, confident, energetic delivery of Royce. The product is closed by "Off", one of the most criticized tracks, with good reasons. Mr. Porter's rhythm is complex and doesn't breathe for more than a few seconds before the rapper's attack, but it deserves more turns instead: the producer bases it on a slight clash of drumsticks and on a soul sample that is distorted to sound darker and more dystopian than usual, combined with an elegant piano and synthesized strings probably, I'm not sure. The MC spits out a single verse for three minutes without saying much, with forgettable lyricism, then the beat goes to die like trains in the salt desert of Bolivia.
17 tracks, 3 skits, 63 minutes of listening in total. It's an album more complicated than it looks and making a careful examination of it isn't an easy task. Royce da 5'9" comes from five solo albums and five collaborative albums before this one, after a turbulent career in the music industry and after a newfound personal lucidity. Twenty years in the game, the contracts with Tommy Boy and Sony, the long run as an independent, hundreds of featuring everywhere, the success with those crazy Slaughterhouse, the consecration alongside the myth DJ Premier. Lot of albums in the charts, three at the top of the rap chart, one first on the Billboard 200, several gold records. The specialized magazines have always taken him into consideration — XXL has awarded 4/5 to all nine Royce albums it has reviewed, from 2009 to 2018, which is paradoxical because he would have one of the best and most consistent discographies in hip-hop history, which isn't true in facts. Looking back, after all this, the rapper wonders where his Classic is. He has good reason. Beyond the complacent magazines, journalists and critics, his albums have never appealed enough to fans to deem them worthy of being at that level, on the top shelf. The most successful one came out around a difficult moment in his life, that the artist doesn't want to relive.
On his sixth solo studio album, the Detroit rapper comes up with the right mindset, he wants to build his own classic. The album is easily his best solo, for once the production is enjoyable and accessible, it's done by a dozen different people and it's good, layered, full, intertwining soul and jazz in a competent way. The lyrics, unfortunately, don't help him: Royce tries to make a great album and tries to go on for over an hour with lyrics of that kind, but it's too complicated, he undertakes to tackle different topics, and in the end, it comes out a design that features personal, socio-conscious and political fillers in the midst of battle rap and pure brag. He fails in his intent and it's a shame. The record, structurally, resembles its second CD: a very strong beginning, which after a couple of tracks begins to fade towards a not completely successful, weak, a bit flat central section, and then rises again in the final with other very strong tracks. At his best, he's one of the greatest on the circuit and lives up to his reputation, repeatedly claimed here, of one of the most underrated / inadequately considered rappers on the circuit, at his worst, he's clearly uninspired and he doesn't stand out. In any case, I think there's enough good material for the fans, the production and the style sound close to the East Coast.
Highlights: "Tabernacle", "Pray", "Hard", the rhythm of "Dope!", "America", "Layers", "Gottaknow".
Rating: 7.4/10.
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