Second solo mixtape for Killah Priest, distributed for free on the internet and released by Proverbs Records. The author himself says he's giving this project away for free and will bring out more because he has so many set aside (in "Don't Stop"). Only half tape boasts credits for the beats: the production is handled by Killah Priest himself & Marvin Gaye, Thorotracks, Kilisto, Danger, DJ Wool, Kount 5th, Tha Advocate and Jeff Burna for Ruff Houze Productions. The guests are 60 Second Assassin of Sunz of Man, Vendetta Kingz, Starkim, Purpose, Tha Advocate, Willy Northpole, Stat Quo, Doitall, Big Lou, Hussein Fatal of Outlawz, Sha Stimuli and Mr. Probz. Starkim, the son of Killah Priest, gets two soloist tracks.
There isn't much to expect from free tapes, especially around this time. The artist puts together 27 tracks which are mostly short freestyles, skits and interludes, along with some discarded tracks from the last albums, two Starkim tracks, one with Rasul, and a posse full of no-names in which there's also Hussein Fatal of Outlawz, a group linked to 2Pac, which has been honored several times over the years by Killah Priest.
Lyrically, Killah Priest brings several topics into play: many gangsterisms, thugging, guns, drug dealing, crimes, materialism, murders, scams, unfavorable judicial sentences and unjust towards the same interpreter, demons, death, religion, invectives against other rappers, ragged references to the Bible, street stories, drug stories, and numerous metaphysical passages that mix multiple themes in an unclear way. Now there's greater tolerance by him towards a certain religion and he takes it out on pagans. Also, Starkim comes down a couple of times to represent the ghetto. In all this stream of consciousness, there's also an interesting concept: Killah Priest claims to have killed the devil, the tape opens like this and ends with the devil's funeral.
The middle of many filler tracks that are actually freestyles for a concept that could have been a short five-track EP, Killah Priest talks about how he met the devil and spent an evening drinking with him ("Drinkin' With the Devil"), how he proposed to Priest to become a rap star and have success, women and money and how he refused — Drake instead accepted; but that's another story — and he came to the decision that he wanted to kill him. Priest then plans the devil's murder ("Don't Stop"), in the same song he takes issue with the fact that he's not a successful rapper, because it's the devil who controls the record industry and has the major specialized magazines in the sector such as "The Source" (on this the boy isn't far from reality) asking some of the greats such as Nas and Ghostface Killah to join him in the fight between good and evil and he shoutout to the incarcerated DMX.
Killah Priest then claims to have killed the devil ("The Chase" aka "The Escape - The Devil's Sidemen" in alternative tracklisting; one of the first tracks of the tape in any case, precedes the others) with a .40 glock in a fantasy dream where Brooklyn's emcee freed us all from evil and he can go and tell the priest of his mother's parish ("get up we g's / I killed the devil, we free"), before drinking alcohol, smoking weed in the same church with the priest, dancing and dwelling on humanity's criminal past. This is a track that should have gone down in the history of the genre and for some reason didn't, I fear it's due to a poor and cheap production credited to Killah Priest himself. Following this there's also an eulogy ("Devil's Eulogy") and the aforementioned funeral ("The Devil's Funeral" aka "Funeral").
Outside the concept, there isn't much to explore, "3-6 Freestyle" somehow doesn't work as well as it should, the production is lackluster and there are few noteworthy moments. Probably the best comes when the Brooklyn rapper decides to deliver for some minute on the beat of Raekwon's "New Wu" in "Wu Hoo Freestyle". The rest is more or less disappointing, with the peak coming when Killah Priest decides to try autotune in "Amazing", which is mesmerizing and terrible. Not recommended. 4.5/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment