On the music front, Royce Da 5'9" has been exceedingly active these past months. Last December he put out the bonus edition of PRhyme, containing three new excellent tracks and a remix of the original 'Wishin''. He's slated to drop his Layers album on April 15, and has been teasing said release with some great singles, including 'Tabernacle'. To build further hype for Layers, Royce blessed Datpiff.com with this brand new EP, Tabernacle: Trust The Shooter. Despite feeling more like a mixtape than an EP; (standing at 46 minutes in length with 12 tracks) Trust The Shooter is another fantastic project from Royce, and easily my favourite release of 2016's first quarter.
Royce is all about lyrics, which can be a difficult thing in today's rap sphere. Lyrics aren't making rappers popular like they used to - as long as the bass on your track is turned up far too high, and the same hook is repeated enough times, you'll get on the radio. Taking that into consideration, it's worth noting that there isn't one single hook for the first fifteen minutes of the whole project. There's no room for those when you've got so much to say, and Royce simply wants to rap. 'Black History', 'Savages', and 'Dead President Heads' (the latter being almost seven minutes long) are hard bars from start to finish, with some of the best beats I've heard so far this year. The former, 'Black History', (whcih was labelled a 'snippet' on Datpiff during the release countdown to this mixtape) is a PRhyme song, produced by Preemo himself. The first beat is fast, panicked - sharing the sentiment of Royce's opening lines. It's fitting he begins the project with his birth. "Soon as I was born I new I was due to do some damage / came out the womb, doc just passed me around the room and panicked". After a minute of rapping, DJ Premier swoops in, with a line that excites me to death - "PRhyme 2 is coming!". The beat changes to be far more dramatic, with a vocal section providing an excellent background on the song. Royce talks briefly on Premier's formation of Gang Starr, and also takes the time to shout out his peers - Kendrick, Pusha T, Eminem, and the House Gang. 'Savages' is a bombastic song, with another fast beat driven by an electric guitar. If you want to listen to some effortless double-time flow, then this song is for you. He flows at this speed for over four minutes, with only one brief interlude in the middle of the song. 'Dead President Heads' is similar to the second half of the first track, being far more layered and orchestral. The first verse is 6:43... and so is the song. 'Dead President Heads' is simply rap from start to finish. No bullshit included. Just like KXNG Crooked did, Royce has some words for the non-lyricists. 'Which Is Cool' is a tongue-and-cheek song that makes fun of various things. It's actually a pretty funny song too - "Nigga, you a bitch and your bitch a dude, which is cool" can be seen as both a diss and a show of acceptance, depending on how sarcastic you think Royce is being, That's a line I found hilarious. He insults ghostwriters too - "If you don't write your own rhymes get offended this is to you and you / listen fool, no more bars for you". It's a well-known fact that Royce ghostwrote on Dr. Dre's 2001, but he doesn't condone that anymore. In the midst of all the Quentin Miller ghostwriting for Drake controversy, the line is especially poignant, and is driven home at the end of the first half of the song. Royce says, "Maybe I ain't rich as you which is cool / maybe I ain't weird as you which is cool / maybe it ain't a style to be lyrical". It's cool he isn't as rich, it's cool he isn't as weird... but is it cool that lyricism isn't a style? The second beat on this song has a nice trumpet too, which is enough to make the song another highlight in the track listing. 'Rap On Steroids' is the track where Royce and Black Thought of The Roots go toe-to-toe. Black Thought has been absolutely murdering his features recently; my favourite easily being 'Extradite' with Freddie Gibbs. Both rappers take no prisoners, so they need a beat and hook that are worthy enough to match, and Assassin was picked to join them. Remember that guy that did the chorus on 'The Blacker The Berry'? Assassin is a loud artist, with a very distinct voice, and it's thunderous as he yells the song title again and again. The instrumental is fast-paced, with speedy trumpets, a heavy, hard hitting slow drum, and an unrelenting bass line. The beat breaks occasionally, leaving room for Royce to be in his own element - but it's the quiet before the storm. You can hear Royce trying to fit as many lines in as he can before the chorus hits, because when it does, there's no being heard over Assassin. He takes over the end of the song after Royce and Black Thought finish, which might not have been the best idea - he simply yells the "rap is on steroids" refrain and nothing else for a whole 45 seconds, but the song is still another highlight. What do you get when Royce and Black Thought team up for an album? From here, the tone and mood of the album comes down a few notches. 'Universe Interlude' and 'Tabernackle' are more heartfelt songs, with more storytelling and emotion behind them. Neither have choruses, by the way. Both tracks relate to his family; on 'UI' Royce is storytelling from the time he was a child, and when his father attempted to slap him, ended up piercing his hand on the pen in his hand, and he has to explain to the cops that "this is just who we really are / Montgomeries". 'Tabernackle', the lead single to Layers and 10th track on Trust The Shooter, is perhaps Royce's most powerful song. Lots of things happened for Royce that day, and he dives into the significant of his life changing 24 hours - on the 29th of December 1997, he met Eminem for the first time, his grandmother died, and his eldest son was born. The day was a revelation for him, mentioning that this day was the day he became a true believer in faith. The story is told not only through lyrics, but a few brief interludes where Royce simply speaks to the listeners without rhyming or songwriting. The picture that appears during the story is vivid, and heart-wrenching at the same time. This is where the EP could have ended. It would have made so much sense for 'Tabernackle' to be the final song on the project - it would have brought the EP full circle, beginning with Royce's birth and ending with his son's. It would also make sense, because this is the track 1 on the previewed Layers tracklist, so that would make this song a perfect way to segway from the end of the EP to the beginning of the album. But there are two more songs after 'Tabernackle'; which are 'Trust The Shooter' and 'Digest'. Unfortunately, neither of them are that great. 'Trust The Shooter' is slow and dreary, and has that frustrating hi-hat so reminiscent of trap beats set loud in the mix. I'm not saying hi-hats are bad - the hi-hat you can hear on 'Rap On Steroids' is great - but when they're used as the majority of the instrumental, assisted by only a bass line and one other instrument, that's when they start to turn me away. The Smoke DZA feature also doesn't do much for me, being forgettable still after ten listens. 'Digest' is even worse; the beat sounds like a ringtone, so that's an annoying start. Mr. Porter can be heard in the background, poorly narrating some story about how 'God created the man, and then the beast, and then the woman' with the latter part of the story being told right before the guest fem-cee Tiara begins her verse. She can rap just fine, but there isn't really much that can save the song at this point, so it's a disappointing finish. However, these two songs still don't take away from the album as a whole. What's better is, if you don't like them, you can just chop them off the end of the EP and it won't break it's sequencing. Every song from 'Black History' to 'Tabernackle' is of great quality. Trust The Shooter is proof that Royce is still at that same level he brought his career to with PRhyme, and if this is what Layers will be like, is very good news indeed. It showcases just how clever of an MC he is, how much respect for lyricism he still carries, and again, how underrated he is. Even Kendrick tweeted the video for 'Which Is Cool'. If he's getting respect from Kendrick, he should be getting respect from you. 8.5/10 |
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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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