I could go on a 2000-word spiel about how PRhyme was the best rap album of 2014. One day I most likely will. Made so great just by it's almost complete lack of flaws, Royce and Preemo teaming up resulted in an unexpected masterpiece, which turned a year old just a week ago. Right after it's first birthday, what had been teased since January of 2015 was finally released - a deluxe version of PRhyme. Four new songs, one a remix, a red-tinged new artwork and a re-issue of the original, the pair seem to be attempting to re-create last December one more time before PRhyme 2 in 2016.
I'll only be talking about the new songs in this review. "Golden Era", "Wishin', Pt. II", "Highs And Lows" and "Mode II". One a remix of Wishin' from the original album, one an extension of the original Mode from the Southpaw soundtrack, and two brand new songs on the table. Bonus songs usually aren't significant, but these tracks here increase the total amount of music PRhyme has released full stop by well over 50% - they add up to almost 22 minutes in total, which is only 13 minutes short of the length of PRhyme itself. "Golden Era" features Joey Bada$$, rapper who at the impressively young age of 17 broke out into the music scene to huge acclaim. Still under 21, he is still seen here repping his love of the 90's hip-hop Era, in which he was born halfway through, with lines like "ready to kill, Ready to Die, R.I.P. to Biggie" coming after Royce who says "Me being the illest, It Was Written, my lyrics are Illmatic though". It's a good track, with good verses, and a good beat, but doesn't have much to make it stand out - a stock-standard PRhyme track, which is a really good track considering PRhyme's current output. However, the next track... "Wishin', Pt. II" features Black Thought of The Roots, and is crap. Simply put. It begins with a minute plus intro by DJ Premier, kind of stating why Thought didn't make it onto the original. Black Thought does some ok rapping - not nearly what we heard on the original Wishin', however - and then Royce comes on the microphone and drops the equivalent of lyrical diahorrea. It's trash. I don't have a clue what he's rapping about, twists his voice in a really weird way that doesn't work, and the worst part is he's almost rapping off-beat. He even forgets about the beat switch half-way through and keeps plowing through his lines at the same pace as before. It's a hard-ass beat, and Royce thought he'd whisper for this remix. Yeugh. But don't worry, the tracks recover nicely - "Highs And Lows" brings the quality right back up to what we had before the Wishin' remix happened, and actually has some really good singing by Royce on the hook. It's insanely catchy, and was stuck in my head at work all day. The song features MF Doom and Phonte, the latter of who only has a short verse, and the former dropping some witty bars. It's clever how he snatches the show from Royce during the first verse, but then at the end scolds himself saying "Doom, wait your turn". The beat is spacey and slow, and the rappers treat it as such, not attemping anything too complex or technical to upset the laid-back vibe of the track. It's an adequate comeback after the slump of track two. Then to top things off, the bonus tracks end with "Mode II" featuring Logic. An incredible, 7-minute song, more than half as long as all the rest combined, and the definition of 'fire'. This is the type of shit I want to hear on PRhyme 2. This is the type of shit that made me like The Incredible True Story and PRhyme so much. Logic is like a lyrically backflipper, and here is no exception. Internal rhyme, speed, wordplay, the things he says - it's all there, except for one confusing line where he says "I don't give my wifey the rubber like raw sex, I give her the plastic cause I'm the one that cut the checks now" Logic bragging about raps is one thing, because he can back it up with his talent, but bragging about sex? That's a bit strange, and it doesn't come off to macho due to his incredibly youthful voice. Other than that, though, his two verses come in and sweep the floor, from the "kn-kn-kn-kn-kn-know who I am" scratched into the instrumental by Preem (the instrumental is also the best of the four songs - racy, great basslines at the right time, and a really grand ascending sound when the bars repeat) to the "I'm in motherfucking beast mode" Logic's voice captivates the perfect energy. Royce isn't to be forgotten either, with lines that I reckon are as good as some of the original album's best lines; "When I was eight my daddy yelled down the basement steps, you only gotta listen to me and the man upstairs" and with three verses he has more than enough time to prove he's in beast mode. I didn't listen to the original version of Mode that much - the 3 minute version on the Southpaw Soundtrack - and this track is making me wonder why, because it's in my opinion PRhyme's so far best song, tied with Microphone Preem. Except of course for Wishin', Pt. II, these songs have me excited for PRhyme 2. I'm hoping it's the a Run The Jewels-esque affair, where the first album is great and the second is even better, but I don't think it's 100% a safe bet on that yet, considering who Royce reached out to on Twitter to collaborate with. Kendrick usually kills features, so that's allgood; I only hope for something that fits the track, and doesn't outshine Royce too much. I haven't listened to much of The Game, so I really don't know what to expect if he ends up on there. And Eminem - oh, Eminem - he's either gonna spit the verse of the year, or just completely fuck it up. It's a 50/50 these days. But these new songs are good, and worth checking out. 8.0/10 |
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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