About five years after the last episode, Termanology returns to insist on his "Cameo King" mixtape series, where he takes songs in which he has been a guest of famous artists in recent years and casually puts them together to provide an insight into how he himself is the king of the guests or something. Carrillo at least returns a little more humble compared to the previous chapter and renounces the crown (and the frame), maintaining a sober profile and a single glittering gold necklace bearing his name, already present at the top. At the bottom left is the title of the mixtape.
The production is mainly handled by Statik Selektah, who creates over half of the tape, the other beats are provided by Shortfyuz, Suits & Burghardt, Gotti Gator, DJ Premier, Fizzy Womack and The Arcitype. Inside Westside Gunn & Conway of Griselda, Your Old Droog, KXNG Crooked of Slaughterhouse, Sean Price of Heltah Skeltah, Mistah F.A.B., Locksmith, Loaded Lux, Cory Gunz, Noreaga (credited a second time as NORE) of C-N-N, Reks, Easy Money, Freddie Gibbs, Chace Infinite, Wais P, Scram Jones, Ransom, Lord Sear, Big Shug, Singapore Kane, Busta Rhymes, Styles P of L.O.X., Lil' Fame of M.O.P., Al-Doe, Chris Rivers, Ghostface Killah of Wu-Tang Clan, Action Bronson, French Montana, Rico Staxx, Cross, Mike Epps, Jared Evan and Kid Ink.
After a brief introduction by Statik, host of the mixtape, the first song is "Take Time", a showcase for Cane, an emerging rapper from Fredericksburg, Virginia, discovered and launched by Statik a few months earlier in his album "Lucky 7", where he faded into the background in a commercial alongside legend Talib Kweli and young emcees CJ Fly, also due to a colorless verse that features one of the most tepid "nostalgic" bars that I can remember. Statik's production is average, Cane drops together with Termanology in what is originally a song for Cane's EP of the same name.
The second choice is a classic and almost automatically one of the best tracks ever in the Termanology catalog: inside Westside Gunn, Conway and Your Old Droog, three giants of the hip-hop scene of the 2010s and 2020s. Not only that, because Statik produces the song giving one of his finest beats of recent times, the rhythm is sensational.
Statik Selektah speeds up a spectacular piano by one tone from Earth & Fire's "Infinity", track for a late seventies album. The bass is raw, rusty, to the guitar is given an echoing effect, the keyboard sparkles, the drum is just chatting at the bar without exaggerating, in a few minutes he'll return home on his lap. The brothers Westside Gunn and Conway enter immediately without frills, with a confidence, a comfort and an energy that is rare to find in a record signed by Termanology.
The boys leave with a crazy back and forth where they weave gangster bars with fashion bars in Griselda's signature style, Gunn is unleashed with a dirty flow and a set of sick adlibs, Con completes it with a silky, clean, clear, regular style. Your Old Droog comes in the wake of the Buffalo duo and certifies the classic with a fresh, unstoppable, dope flow. In comparison, Termano's forced and rigidly hardcore performance makes you smile.
It's necessary to remember that the young Vito to whom Carrillo compares himself, besides stealing carpets with Pete Clemenza, he also murdered what until then was the undisputed and powerful boss of Little Italy. While the boys are at the end of the "The Godfather", when you have unlocked all the codes and go randomly shooting passers-by in the street and robbing banks, Termanology is the guy you left your pad with to go to the bathroom and that he dies comically after three minutes without understanding where the fatal bullets came from.
To compile the mixtape, Termanology relies as usual on the discography of his friend Statik. The following song emerges from the collaboration between the producer and Slaughterhouse's rapper KXNG Crooked which materialized in an album released a few weeks earlier, where Term is given the honor of closing the cut with a final verse. "Front Door" is borrowed from the rapper's mixtape "50 Bodies 5", where he trades bars with Sean P. This is the first production not credited to Statik since the beginning of the tape, being created by Shortfyuz, another historic collaborator of Term with whom he released "G.O.Y.A." (2013).
The author drops bars alongside artists from both coasts on beats by Suits & Burghardt and Gotti Gator, then follows a poker of Statik songs, the unreleased posse "Labor Day" and the remaining three from the albums "What Goes Around..." (2014), "The Proposal" (2013) and "Lucky 7" (2015), in which Termanology finds himself exchanging lines with Noreaga, Action Bronson, Freddie Gibbs, Ransom (the track "Never Forget" is included as a bonus track on the collaborative album between the talented New York emcee and Statik Selektah and is also featured on "50 Bodies 5") and Your Old Droog, among others.
After the papal blessing of Griselda, the appearance of Your Old Droog and the posthumous appearance of Sean Price, one of the best moments of this first part of the tape is represented by Ransom coming down to the mic and delivers stanzas with one of his loosest flows over lush jazz production from Statik Selektah that shades pretty well a soul sample. Termanology doesn't sound bad here, but it's a bit on autopilot and drops light-hearted lyrics, Ransom closes with the last verse and offers a bit of that generic physical-lyrical-miracle flow.
“Off Rip” sounds Gang Starr from the first second the beat starts. It's cinematic, rough, raw, dark, obscure, scratchy, superlative. DJ Premier accelerates a piano scale from "Homecoming / the Search" by the famous Hungarian movie composer Miklós Rózsa, awarded the Oscar three times, and creates a true masterpiece. Inside Big Shug and his protégé Singapore Kane together with a wild and hungry Termanology in a piece that is a sort of reissue of the 2008 remix of "Play It" for the first edition of the "Cameo King" mixtape series, where on a Premier beat the same three rappers met together with the Slaughterhouse emcee Royce da 5'9", which would be as good here as peanut butter on bread.
Preemo also puts the icing on the cake with the splendid scratches to close the piece directly from his hit with Jeru the Damaja "Come Clean". Now, after a Premier we tend to think that the disk will drops, but this is not the case because after that Premier comes a second Premier. Termanology takes a cut made together with Lil' Fame for "Fizzyology" (2012) with Styles P and Busta Rhymes over a beat by Martin. Primo holds down a new piano scale adorned with gentle strings, giving another exquisitely cinematic production, an ideal sound carpet for the four performers.
Patrick Baril returns behind the keyboards, dusting off the floor a song originally intended for a promotional EP for his album "What Goes Around": Al Doe, Chris Rivers and Termanology over an honest offer by Statik. "Make Believe" is a discreet track from "Extended Play" (2013) that allows Freddie Gibbs to make his second presence on this mixtape. Half of CNN NORE also rises to two appearances with "Judo", a song released in the aforementioned "GOYA" by Term entirely produced by Shortfyuz.
"Meteor Hammer" is one of the pieces that lead towards the final part of the tape. Term, Ghostface Killah and Action Bronson drop bars together on a Starks track for the Wu-Tang Clan album "Legendary Weapons" (2011), over a beat handled by Fizzy Womack (aka Lil' Fame), Andrew Keller and Noah Rubin. Nothing strange except that this choice comes a few months after the Staten Island rapper's famous dissing to Bronson. The Lawrence rapper also keeps Action Bronson for the next pick, taken again from "GOYA" and inserts a remix from "Hood Politics 7", closing the tape with a cypher.
Released by ST Records on CD format, it's a good tape, there's really nothing to say. If not for the title of the entire series which instead of "cameo king" could have remained more faithful to the tracks and called "I was there too". 6/10.
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