Revenge Of The Dreamers III - Dreamville: Review

Dreamville
is a subsidiary group of Interscope records founded by J. Cole that features some up and coming talents like J.I.D, Earthgang and Bas. The label has released two Revenge Of The Dreamers compilations but with a larger roster than ever and a number of young, high profile features III is the biggest and boldest of the projects to date.

Review By Lavender:
So it's no secret I haven't exactly been in love with J. Cole's output apart from 2014 Forrest Hills Drive. Despite him hailing from my home state his last two albums have left me underwhelmed for very different reasons. Given that I haven't been head over heels for J.I.D or Earthgang despite enjoying their records I still think this album had a lot of potential. Now that Dreamers is here it faces the challenges of many albums of its type, the quality of the tracks depends greatly on the quality of the artists involved, and that comes with its own issues.

There are a handful of songs here that are dead in the water before they've even started. Lambo Truck features Childish Major on and absolutely awful hook that separates Cozz and Reason's verse. Cozz is dreadfully slow and completely underwhelming where as Reason does his best Ab-Soul impression just to make sure that no real creativity could sneak its way into this song. Don't Hit Me Right Now is a posse cut with a solid chorus from Guapdad 4000 but a bunch of random verses that don't really fit together or do much of anything impressive.

Unfortunately there are plenty of moments that do include quality artists and still fall short. Swivel is one of the most boring and uninspired tracks here while it is even labelled as a track from an upcoming Earthgang record it completely ignores the groups usual zany southern rap style in favor of boring repetitive flows and generic lyrics. Sleep Deprived features a great instrumental that reminds me of a more tempered version of something Flying Lotus would make but it gets wasted with some very generic and mediocre verses dictating the song. Self Love and Got Me are both R&B inspired tracks that mainly feature Ari Lennox doing her thing. They are both decent tracks but in the world of R&B not much sticks out here aside from Ty Dolla $ign's great performance on Got Me.

And even on tracks here that feature great moments there is often some huge variance in the quality of performance. Oh Wow.. Swerve starts off with a pretty solid verse from J. Cole as well as a pretty measured but catchy chorus from Zoink Gang that I like quite a bit but once it transitions into it second half the track loses nearly everything interesting about it. Rembrandt Run It Back is a cutthroat song from JID and J. Cole that I really enjoy until its very last verse. Vince Staples, who was probably the one name I was most excited to hear on this record gives an awful two-bit Danny Brown impression with some struggle bars that completely throws the song off and doesn't play to Vince's strength. Sacrifices is by far the worst example of this as the second half of this track is great and features some killer verses from J. Cole and Saba but getting their is absolutely unbearable. I have no idea who heard Johnny Vegas in the first half of this song and thought it was okay to include in this track, getting through this slog is one of the hardest things I've had to listen to all year and it nearly ruins the song completely.

Thankfully the record includes a number of fantastic tunes that feature young artists creatively riffing around on some great instrumentals with plenty of creativity to go around. The opening tune is a verified hit with Under The Sun a classic jazz sample with J. Cole and Lute delivering some good verses as well as DaBaby shouting out my hometown of Charlotte in a song I have enjoyed coming back to over and over. Costa Rica and Down Bad were two great singles from the record that feature banging beats and killer hooks, as well as a posse of young and talented artists delivering killer verses one after another,

Wells Fargo is one of my favorite moments here and embodies the youthful creative spirit of all the artists working together on this record with some zany and genre pushing ideas delivered one after another. Another pretty frequent formula for success on this record is teaming two great MCs for their charisma and letting the results speak for themselves. Ladies Ladies Ladies is a great track that sees TI and JID handling some great bars about their respective love lives and the hilarious ups and downs. 1993 features two of these combos with Buddy and Smino in the first half and JID and J. Cole in the second half combining it all together for one of the best tracks here. Sunset has J. Cole and a surprisingly sharp Young Nudy teaming up for a pretty great track late in the tracklist.

Revenge Of The Dreamers III has a ton of great moments but like many albums of its nature they come wrapped in some equally torturous sonic features. While stars like JID, J. Cole and Earthgang and features like Ski Mask The Slump God, Smokepurpp, Young Nudy, Saba, Smino and Ty Dolla $ign give great performances all around there are plenty of other moments on here that feature artists with far less talent and charisma doing their best to keep up. Given that Beast Coast, Pivot Gang and Members Only have all failed in their own way to make truly great posse records this year it is no surprise that Dreamers too falls short and the torch falls to Brockhampton to make a fantastic rap group record in 2019. 5.5/10

For more hip hop collectives check out my review of Beast Coast's Escape From New York here.