VVV, Vol. 2 - Kodak Black, Joey Bada$$, Rick Ross, Freddie Gibbs, Starlito and Don Trip & Jonwayne

Albums I'll be reviewing in the 2nd installment of "Very Velocious Verdicts"!

Welcome to the 2nd installment of Very Velocious Verdicts (VVV for short!) Basically, I take projects that I've heard that I think deserve a review, but unfortunately would take too much time to review track by track, and I review them in a shorter review format. Thus, allowing me to cover multiple projects at a time, but in a quicker manner.

Also, a word on the new Kendrick Lamar album...

Drake - More Life: My track by track review

Cover Art for "More Life"

Drake. Does this man even need an introduction at this point? Even if you've been marginally aware of popular music in the past 7 years, then you have heard of this man before. To put in perspective how famous this man is, even my 74 year old grandmother knows who he is. Now, you may be saying "Well, just because she's older, doesn't mean she can't keep up with the times!" and if you are saying that, you have to understand something. My grandmother comes from a 3rd world country called "Belize" (as does the rest of my family), she spends the majority of her days cooking food, looking after kids, and watching movies on the lifetime television network. The closest she gets to current technology is the house phone and flip phone she uses when she's out and about. She is literally never near a radio, or watches anything related to what the current, popular music is on TV. Just lifetime network movies and cable news...and even still, a 74 year old immigrant from Belize knows who Drake is...

Very Velocious Verdicts, Vol. 1 - Future, Oddisee & Mozzy

Albums I'll be covering in the first installment of this new series!

Okay, so as most of you probably already know. I write a lot. Covering each track on each album at first, on paper, seems like a great idea. But the problem with hip hop (and music in general nowadays) is the over saturation of tracks on albums. It seems like the art of short, and concise albums is lost in 2017. Every rapper, it seems, just loads their track lists with upwards of 16+ tracks, with runtimes of up to one hour and 30 minutes.  1 HOUR AND 30 MINUTES FAM. THAT'S 3 EPISODES OF "SEINFELD" WITH THE COMMERCIALS INTACT, THAT'S INSANE AND UNNECESSARY. There are literally movies out there that can be watched and re-watched in that time period. The point is, I don't like overly long musical albums. Doesn't matter who it is. Let Michael Jackson & 2Pac come back and release a joint album together. If that project is 25 tracks or more, they can BOTH go back to the graves they dug themselves up from (RIP though, I love both artists, no disrespect)...

Lupe Fiasco - DROGAS Light: My track by track review

Cover Art for "DROGAS Light"

Lupe Fiasco. Lupe Fiasco is a Chicago born MC who first gained major attention after featuring on Kanye West's song "Touch The Sky", a single from West's sophomore album "Late Registration". After spitting an ear-grabbing guest verse as well as dropping a few overlooked mixtapes. Lupe finally turned heads when he dropped his debut album back in 2006, entitled "Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor". Critics and casual listeners alike both praised Lupe for not being the stereotypical "shoot em up bang bang nigga die slow" type rapper that, at the time in 2006, was dominating the hip hop scene...

Big Sean - I Decided: My track by track review

Cover Art for "I Decided."

Big Sean. Big Sean is a rapper from Detroit, Michigan. He is most known through his associations with Kanye West and being signed to West's label G.O.O.D. Music. Kanye West is said to have almost not signed Big Sean. According to Sean himself, Kanye was at a radio station and Sean left his job at a check cashing place and rushed to the radio station that Kanye was at. Initially, Kanye did not want Sean to rap for him, saying he had to go. Eventually, Kanye let Big Sean rap for him as he was exiting the radio station, by the time Kanye had got halfway to the exit, he started to like Sean's raps and turned around to start nodding his head along to Big Sean's raps. The rest is history, Kanye liked the freestyle he had heard from Big Sean and signed the Detroit native. From then, Sean has undergone an evolution of sorts. When I first heard Big Sean I thought he was very creative, but I just attributed that to the music video to "Getcha Some". When I heard "Marvin Gaye & Chardonnay" and saw the music video for it, I was like "ok, Sean's just another turn up, let's have fun rapper" which, for the record, there's nothing wrong with being, it's just that there was nothing interesting about him that stuck out in my mind...

Migos - Culture: My track by track review

Cover Art for "Culture"

Migos. Migos are a hip hop trio from Lawrenceville, Georgia or if you're like me, you've mostly heard about them coming out of (or being popularized from) Atlanta, Georgia. Now, the group consists of 3 members, Takeoff, Offset & Quavo. Quavo's name is the most recognizable of the group simply because he has more notable (solo) features with major artists such as Kanye West, Travis Scott, and more. Offset and Takeoff aren't as well known or recognized but when it comes to the Migos as a group. Offset and Takeoff seem to shine tens times more than Quavo at certain times. Don't get me wrong, no Migo is overall just definitively better than the other, in fact, I think they all bring their own unique characteristics and strengths to the group without over powering one another or sounding too out of place. I primarily think that this is why a lot of people often get the members of Migos confused for each other. It's simply because Quavo, Offset and Takeoff have so much chemistry and are so in sync with each other, that they can transition effortlessly between verses of each member. They can do this so well, it's to the point where newer listeners will have trouble telling them apart at first. Obviously, the more people listen to Migos, the more apparent the differences between each member becomes...

Wesley Rocco - Words to Myself EP: My track by track review + Bonus track review

Cover Art for "Words to Myself EP"

Wesley Rocco. Wesley Rocco is an up and coming artist from Texas, who is fairly new to the game. And judging from his write up on Google Plus,  this is his first official project that he has professionally released on iTunes, Spotify etc. Now, truth be told, I don't know much about this artist personally. Don't get me wrong, I interact with him on a social media app called "Google Plus" (G+) and while I've had some back and forth discussion with him about mostly hip hop related things, it's not like I can go to a wikipedia page and read up on his real name, date of birth or anything of that nature. This means, in reality, I have no real personal knowledge about this artist going into this project. I did hear a track he did called '1992' last year and I remember liking it, so I figured, why not try out this project? I'm only a few months late, and he's supposed to be dropping another EP soon so might as well see what all this music is about...