Crooked I — Apex Predator

At 37, Dominic "Crooked I" Wickliffe's debut is one of the most anticipated ever, having been in the game since the 1990s. In 1995, he signed with Noo Trybe, a branch of Virgin, but in the same years, Virgin decided to do without its subsidiary and the rapper was left without a contract. In this period, he approaches Dr. Dre's Aftermath, before signing with DPG Records, a subsidiary of Death Row, and later to agree again with Death Row itself, exiting the contract with DPG. He only manages to release a mixtape, in 2003; in the same year, his contract with the label ends and he begins to have legal problems with Death Row, which prevent him from releasing material with a subsidiary of Universal, with which he had settled.

The boy has had a lot of diatribes in the music industry, his career is studded with label problems. How many have I named? And there will be more, because then he made records with E1 and Shady Records. Solved the legal problems with the Death Row, Crooked I manages to create a large following on the internet and begins to publish a lot of material, including several mixtapes, attracting the attention of insiders. In 2009, his career is relaunched by his joining the rap supergroup Slaughterhouse, which gives him even more exposure and gets the name around mainstream audiences as well.

After two LPs with the group, the Long Beach rapper releases his first solo album in 2013. The production is handled by Snaz, Jonathan Elkaer, Luxe Beats, Streetrunner, Sarom, Tabu, Cardo, Mr. Porter and Crooked himself. K. Young, Tena Jones and Tech Nine are the only guests. Crooked I does what you'd expect him to do, he brings out tight bars with a hardcore style. What to add in the rhythm compartment? These guys don't know how to do them, trivially. There isn't a really good one, some are affordable, there's almost competent use of bass, guitars and random synths, and in general, the sound that comes out of it is generic and forgettable. Neither the hardcore cuts nor the ballads that the rapper offers in these forty minutes stand out from the rest due to the production. Even the song for the club "No Sleep Gang" doesn't sound particularly successful: you can feel that the energy of the boys is there, but something is holding it back.

It's actually a bit of the feeling that surrounds the whole project, it's a restrained album, Crooked I doesn't want to make a mistake and he doesn't do it, it comes out a safe, risk-free album without sensational tracks. Published by Treacherous C.O.B., that label subsidiary of Universal with which he should publish material in the mid-2000s, with EMPIRE Distribution, the album peeps out among the independent releases and in the top 40 of rap records. It's also welcomed positively by critics, even if it goes unfairly unnoticed by most fans, failing to take advantage of the long wave that media exposure with Slaughterhouse had provided to him. 6.5/10.