7 - Lil Nas X: EP Review
Lil Nas X
is a Georgia based rapper and former Nicki Minaj Twitter stan who found himself in the limelight when his Red Dead Redemption inspired song Old Town Road became a Tik Tok meme and ultimately got a remix from country music legend Billy Ray Cyrus. This is the first commercial project since Old Town Road's explosion and could be a potential indicator of Nas X's potential success to come.
Review By Lavender:
I really had no idea what to expect going into 7 given how little material we've had to go off of from Lil Nas X so far. But especially once he began teasing snippets of these tracks it was clear that he wasn't trying to make his name in the lane of country rap exclusively. This album actually features some contemporary trap tunes, straight up rock and grunge songs, and a handful of country to match.
If you're able to overcome the fact that the EP is called 7 and there are 8 tracks, which I have deemed okay ONLY because Old Town Road is on here twice. We should probably talk about that after-all because Nas X is here on the back of just one song, and it appears on this short EP twice. Old Town Road is an instrumentally dead track that rides solely on the fact that is has one of the catchiest hooks I've heard from anyone in a long time. You could seriously fill in just about any verses and instrumentation to the song and you'd still have a hit on your hands, and this is an approach that Nas X attempts to make a few more times across this record, we will see if he ends up being successful.
Panini was the second track on the EP we heard from and compared to the snippet, the full version of this song is not much better. The lyrics are flat out stupid and while there is no way around that the song itself is honestly decent. While the track is far too brief for its own good and desperately needs an increase in complexity from a songwriting perspective the verses are pretty tight and honestly more catchy than the hook. Given that the track is just the snippet played twice there is a lot of room for improvement. While on the subject there are a few tracks here that really drag the EP down. Kick It is a song that tries so hard to be contemporary that it forgets its performers limitations. Nas X cannot sing these notes and the awful crooning absolutely kills the songs momentum. At other points on this record the bars Nas X is trying to rap are faster than he is even capable of delivering and when he loses his way the track does as well. Bring U Down is yet another disaster that sees Nas X delivering the corny title refrain again over and over again with absolutely no increase in quality or persistence. There is barely any form of a song here and it is one of the most annoying tracks I've heard all year.
C7osure is a song that is boring but thankfully not bad, it features some of the best Lil Nas X singing I've heard in his brief career so far and while there isn't really much of a good song here at its core I'm happy to hear him improve his performance capability. On the other side of this coin is Rodeo which features a great contemporary trap beat and an excellent feature from Cardi B, who surprised me to see on this record. Her moment is brief but one of my favorite on the record and it makes the song worthwhile despite a very rough performance from Nas X himself.
The only song I really liked on here was F9mily (You & Me) which could literally be a Strokes song it is so tantalizingly similar. Even down to the explosion of energy into the hook and the tight catchy vocal line this thing is a true to form pop rock song that is once again too brief for its own good, but shows how diverse Nas X's influences are.
This EP is just not good, unfortunately it spends to much of its time flirting with good ideas and falling short of their potential. What that does mean however is that potential is a part of Lil Nas X as an artist and his diversity and variety in performances and genres makes him a name to look out for going forward, even if there isn't much to indicate a turnaround. 3.5/10
