Album released by Your Old Droog and produced entirely by Tha God Fahim. The beats are credited to Argov, Ewonee, Messiah Musik, Preservation and Roper Williams. The guests are Mach-Hommy, Tha God Fahim, Billy Woods, Tvoy (YOD alter-ego), Phonte, Black Thought, and El-P.
The intro boasts a nostalgic sample, melodic and wonderful, dark horns, good rhythm provided by Argov, YOD attacks it with a subdued, slow, fluid rapping. The intro does exactly what a proper album intro should do: it gives you a sense of the entire disk from the very first moments. With this project, Your Old Droog explores his own personal identity, starting from his Ukrainian roots and taking a look at all the evolution following the fall of the Soviet Union, in what might be the first hip-hop album with a concept tied to the Soviet Union.
It follows "Kazakhstan", Messiah Musik behind the keys with a simple musical carpet, obsessive sample, light and distant midtempo drum, light and velvet delivery by the emcee. The sound is obscure and YOD is at ease over this kind of beats, reciting braggadocio lyrics. The third choice, produced by Ewonee, is the crowd's favorite "Ukraine", with a obsessive loop almost to the point of annoyance tamed by a cautious and honest drum while Your Old Droog annihilates the track with some of his best verses and a smooth flow. I want to recommend the remix realized by Nicholas Craven for this joint, it's simply beautiful.
The album continues to be impeccable with "New Religion": amazing loops, sweet strings, dusty old strings that resonate in the orchestra of a rusty, cobwebbed hall, abandoned on the outskirts of a marginal capital city that was once a nerve center of Soviet technocratic power, light distant drum, splendid bass line, dope rhythm invented by Argov, YOD goes on velvet and is joined by Tha God Fahim and Mach-Hommy, the first spits in a regular way, the latter is welcomed by a wonderful bridge, with light piano keys, light drum just perceived, circular, melodic, immense female loop, Mach is unstoppable over this soundscape.
The choice number five "Matryoshka" is an impressive display of strength from the emcee, who delivers nearly seven minutes of bars across five different beats — most of them produced by Argov, the album's main producer, with the middle section provided by Preservation — maintaining a rapping style, lyrics, and a phenomenal, appropriate consistency for each beat, as few, very few, could. Every rhythm is great, there's really nothing you can say. Argov is credited even for the soundscape of "Odessa": excellent light sample, dope strings, light distant drum, fluid and velvet rapping by Your Old Droog, the track is closed by Billy Woods with a lucid, rough, slow, dope flow. The author switches from English to Russian in "Malchishka Krutoy" over a good and light jazz loop, then skit over another Soviet rhythm.
"Babushka III" shows Your Old Droog at his finest over another masterpiece handled by Argov: splendid strings, wonderful samples, soundscape built without drum, silky, confident, hardcore rap by YOD that dominates before a skit-outro, going against those who profess to be real hip-hop heads behind a screen, pulling out one sharp bar after another. The ninth track boasts one of the last beats created by Argov in the tape for "Uzbekistan": ethereal melodic sample, good fluid rapping by Your Old Droog, Phonte (of Little Brother) spits with energy, slow, smoothness, then the cut is closed by Mach-Hommy with a confident, hardcore, dope flow, is unstoppable even over this soundscape, he kills it.
Roper Williams produces "Pravda", one of the most appreciated songs of this record. The track is one of best posse tracks of the season in rap. Melodic and minimal sample, distant drum, Your Old Droog raps with a velvet, slow, fluid style. Mach-Hommy has a slow and smoothness rapping, then El-P arrives on the mic with a confident style. Tha God Fahim delivers his bars with a inspired but monotone rapping, then Black Thought arrives with a smoothness, devastating flow, he comes out with embarassing ease, confident, powerful, dope. "Kyrgyzstan" presents the second musical carpet invented by Messiah Musik. Boom bap with perfect drum, great samples, subdued, slow, fluid rapping by Your Old Droog, even here he's at his best. The record finishes with a skit over a melodic, amazing, nostalgic rhythm by Argov.
Composed by twelve tracks and almost forty minutes of material, the album is released by Nature Sounds. The production breathes deeply the darkness, the cold, the fog and the desolation of the places where the listener is accompanied, if we want also the slowness of those places, thanks to a sound set that is very precise and cohesive, composed mainly of expert strings, wind instruments, light pianos and the choice to keep the drums out of the way, a choice that turns out to be a good one. The rhythms fit brilliantly with the rapper's performance style, who maintains a pretty sharp pen and surrounds himself with some of the best emcees of the last quarter century to enhance his tracks, and the boys all deliver memorable performances — in the home stretch, Fahim comes out less well than the others, but these are details.
Your Old Droog manages to build a personal and profound concept album, while still allowing for appropriate pauses and healthy variations from the theme, showing his difficulties in integrating into a new country from a young age, having to adapt quickly and to the best of his ability and possibilities to the new realities offered to him, a bit like what happens, perhaps not by chance, in one of the symbolic songs of the album, "Matryoshka", which forces him to constantly change in order to find acceptance from society which is unattainable and which the rapper renounces, remaining faithful to himself and his lyrical style, without making any concessions and finding his roots.
What emerges is one of the best underground hip-hop albums of the entire year 2020, and his finest project yet. It's quite interesting that every person who listened to this tape has a different favorite track, a clear symptom of the great musical quality offered by the author in this project, impossible to hate.
Rating: 8.5/10.
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