Shelby - Lil Skies: Review

Lil Skies

is yet another in the line of emerging trap stars who had moderate success with two big singles in 2017 Red Roses and Nowadays and scored his biggest hit to date with i the lead single to his second studio album Shelby. Riding a similar wave of many of his contemporaries Lil Skies needed to find a way to separate himself and give people a reason to listen while the spotlight was still on him.''

Review By Lavender:

My expectations for this album were admittedly not very high, Skies first album Life Of A Dark Rose was decent but very forgettable and despite being a hit the big single for Shelby which came in the form of i is one of the least essential hip hop songs I've heard all year and unfortunately Lil Skies proves on this album that he is exactly who we all thought he was. 

So let me jump into a handful of the problems that plague this album from start to finish. Starting off with the fact that far too many of these songs are obvious and blatant ripoffs of some of his more popular contemporaries, most frequently Lil Uzi Vert. OK 4 Now is a bad Juice WRLD song in a world that is already saturated with Juice's music. Stop The Madness shows Skies hopping onto some bad Thugger style flows before Gunna gives yet another horrible feature where he too tries to copy Thugger's style. Breathe sounds like a parody of the idea of trap music itself and so much like his contemporaries it's basically unbearable. Bad Girls, When I'm Wasted and the albums lead single i are all Uzi rip offs and not even particularly decent ones. Wasted sounds like Skies trying to remake some of my least favorite Lil Uzi songs, and doing so badly.

Another huge problem is the lyrics, time after time they are routinely awful but it's when Skies tries to be serious Blue Strips and Highs And Lows are particularly terrible examples of decent tunes being wrecked by a very serious attitude completely unaware of how poor the lyricism is. Name In The Sand tries desperately to be a serious and emotional trap ballad but it is laughably underwritten for the subject matter.

The final huge flaw of Shelby is that multiple otherwise decent songs fall victim to such a sub par performance that it sounds like Lil Skies isn't even trying. Nowadays Pt. 2 pulls from a hit he had in the past and features a solid Landon Cube feature at the end but getting there is a monotonous crawl through what seems like a badly freestyled radio verse. Through The Motions has plenty of awful impressions of better rappers as he tries to switch up his flow in meaningful ways but nothing ever sticks, and No Rainy Days the albums big closing moment could be done better by almost any popular trap rapper with its awful crooned hook, generic beat and awful lyrics.

Despite the mess that this album is there are still two songs that I actually enjoy and will hold onto, but even then there is some problems. Flooded comes in at just under 2 minutes but its briefness is actually a virtue as there is almost no time for the track to get old. As much as it sounds like a computer generated trap song, it's a pretty good one with bright production and catchy flows. The other song is Mansion which features some more terrible lyrics but Skies thankfully makes up for it by actually having a personality and giving a pretty great performance.

Shelby is a very taxing listen, not just because so few of the tracks manage to make any impact at all, but because it so often come close to being decent and shoots itself in the foot. In the moment where so many stars have found an opportunity to propel themselves to fame in recent years Lil Skies gives us no reason to consider returning to his music in what would be the worst album I've heard all year if not for a truly tragic Avril Lavigne release. 1.5/10

For more Trap check out my review of 2 Chainz Rap Or Go To The League here.