Denzel Curry, a 23-year old rap artist from Florida, has followed up his fan-favourite 2016 album Imperial with one of the most creative and challenging rap albums of 2018. TA13OO, his third full length project, is an ambitious and progressive work that builds on hip-hop's current mainstay trends whilst also incorporating it's own fantastic musical ideas. Although the base foundation for much of TA13OO is laid upon the mostly washed-out, dumbed-down modern trap sound, Curry's impressive and admirable creativity is strong enough to lift even the most basic sounds to thrilling heights, and holds the attention of the listener intensely for the duration of his three-act album.
Act 1 - 'Light'. It begins relatively calmly, opening with one of the most gorgeous instrumentals I've heard this year. The stressed-out strings soar into the sky as pianos swirl, keys ring out, and bass thumps to the kicking drums. It's uplifting to the point of heavenly, but Curry's unsettling (but somehow captivating) lyricism starkly contrasts - he raps about a girl, "I knew you wasn't normal ever since the age of nine / I, heard you were molested when you hit the age of five / So, in a sense I sensed that all your innocence had died" it's a morbid tale he spills, opening his album with a sense of foreboding, but the second that the next song 'Black Balloons' begins, that sense is lost to the most blissful and beautiful track on TA13OO. The melody is beyond infectious, the beat is mesmerizing, and GoldLink joins Curry for a set of two extremely entertaining verses. The aesthetic of the album soon switches, however, and by the end of the first act, we see Curry rap over the first trap instrumental of the album on 'Sumo'. Even if slightly less instrumentally interesting, Curry remains center-stage and keeps the audience absorbed in his presence, swapping to a violently aggressive delivery and also dropping in some great pop-culture references - "Tell me who the hottest motherfucker that you know / If it ain't me, you a puto / Curry get the flame, call a n***a Prince Zuko" closing the first act out with a fiery energy, Act 2 - 'Gray'. At this point of TA13OO, two things happen - Curry hits another near- flawless chain of quality, and the album degrades (tastefully) into a sonic wasteland. Dark, resounding synths barrel across the sound stage. Haunted, terrified piano notes freeze your ears over. Bass relatively booms. From 'Super Saiyan Superman' to 'Sirens', there's almost nothing to fault - The brooding, evil atmosphere that resonates so potently in the middle of the album is authentic and fascinating. And of course, Denzel writes fantastic, catchy choruses for all of these tracks, the best two being a tie between 'Mad I Got It' and 'Sirens'. The former features an undeniably ear-digging cadence that works with the instrumental so well, whilst the latter is sung as a duet between Curry and Billie Eilish - and the singing is simply entrancing. The track finds Denzel sharing his thoughts on the social state of the USA - a topic already overdone, but again, Curry's creative pen raises the track above the usual hollow anti-Trump barrages, while still retaining the sentiment. "With a good girl gone bad girl / Who went gay ’cause of date rape / That's a metaphor for the US / 'Cause they got us all in the same state", he asserts in the first verse, before losing his patience and angrily blaring "Donald Trump, Donald Duck / What the fuck, is the difference?" at the end of the song. Unfortunately, after this track, Curry falls flat on his face for the first (and thankfully, final) time, ending the second act with the underachieving 'Clout Cobain'. The intentions are still there - the track discusses suicide, which is a fitting subject for the dismal atmosphere of the project - but 'Clout Cobain' suffers extensively from lazy writing and production. "Suicidal doors, call it Kurt Cobain"; to me, simply referencing suicide and Kurt together isn't convincing - Kurt Cobain, although one of the most famous, is far from the only person who has taken their own life, and using his name simply for extra 'authenticity' on your track discussing suicide (Curry doesn't talk about Cobain, discuss the man's life and death, or go any deeper than simply using his name) feels tasteless. The beat is the most uninteresting on the album, being simply snares, a rubbery bass line, and a repeated keyboard stroke, while Curry's half-sung half-rapped vocals are an obvious attempt at commercial interest. Fortunately, the project recovers from here. Act 3 - 'Dark'. The final act of the album starts slowly, with 'The Blackest Balloon' perhaps being the most simply passable track of TA13OO, but 'Percs' has a fun and bouncy synth beat, and Curry's energy is still at an all-time high as he discards modern audiences in disgust. "Sound like "Durr, durr, durr", you like "Oh, that's lit"". But I have to talk about 'Vengenace'. Although there are only 3 rappers on the song - Curry, ZillaKami, and a growing-in-prominence JPEGMAFIA - its fire and animation make it feel like a posse-cut. The beat bangs with the strength of knock-out punches, and the ominous organ notes that reverberate around in the background add so much to the sound. JPEGMAFIA absolutely dominates the track - his charisma, voice, and wry wit are absolutely fantastic, and his verse is without doubt one of the best on the album. The way he stretches his vocals as he cries out "When it cries, it cries, if you die, you die, pussy, meet the sky / Rappers telling lies" sounds absolutely fantastic. This is seriously an impressive verse - I wasn't truly won over like most of the internet was by his breakout project, Veteran, but if he continues to rap like this on features and within his own work, his future could be one of the strongest of the next decade. TA13OO is a show-stopping moment. Almost no rapper of Denzel's generation has managed to achieve musically what he has here. The creativity simply oozes out of his work, his control of aesthetic, and his ability to craft fantastic sounding music is unparalleled by all but one of his fellow 2016 XXL Freshman cover artists. The dark, haunting environment that Curry places the listener in is an outstanding experience, and all but one moment of this album is consistent and exciting. 90/100 |
201820162015Scores0-30 = Bad
31-49 = Sub-par 50-60 = Average 61-70 = Decent 71-80 = Good 81-89 = Great 90-99 = Incredible 100 = Perfect Archives
September 2018
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