Eve - Rapsody: Review
is a North Carolina rapper who released her debut album in 2012 to an unfortunate lack of critical attention. After signing to Jay-Z's Roc Nation label she dropped her breakout project Laila's Wisdom in 2017 to critical acclaim, and despite being quiet since then, announced the upcoming release of her third album just days before it inevitably dropped.
Review By Lavender:
I was introduced to Rapsody a little bit earlier than most given that she resides in my home state of North Carolina and made more than one guest appearance at Raleigh's Hopscotch festival which I frequented. So when I saw her grabbing some much deserved attention with the lead single to her second record Power which featured Top Dawg darlings Kendrick Lamar and Lance Skiiiwalker, O was excited and happy for her. When the record this track was promoting ultimately got released I was a pretty big fan of it as Rapsody was unrelenting in her individuality and unafraid to be herself. The only major complaint I had with the record was that it was very long and not every moment was worthwhile. Both the good and the bad sentiments of Laila's Wisdom apply strangely consistently to Eve.
Eve has a really interesting song title theme of naming each track after notorious black women that have in someway inspired the themes of the project in a similar sense of Young Thug's Jeffrey with songs named after people who inspired him. Even though I don't think the song titles are directly relevant to the themes of each song there are plenty of themes that come up across the record over and over again, so the record comes off consistently enough in that regard.
There are plenty of fantastic songs across this record that I will have in rotation for at least the rest of the year. Nina is a great opener that features Rapsody over a very stripped back instrumental to start until some punchy drums kick in but Rapsody is the star of the show for sure, despite a lyrical eye roll moment or two. Cleo was one of the coolest and most refreshing surprises on the album that features production from 9th Wonder and a expertly mixed sample of Phil Collins In The Air Tonight of all things. Rapsody shines on her first verse but it is really the great hook and brilliant sample spun into the beat that makes this one of the highlights on the record for me.
Whoopi is one of my favorite lyrical songs on the record as she proves how confident she is by taking shots at Kanye, and despite me enjoying the last two Kanye solo records I still think it is brave of her to name drop him like that. She has some cartoonish and hilarious wordplay across her verses and features name drops of everyone from 50 Cent to Brian Urlacher for yet another highlight. Maya features a guest vocalist handling one of the better hooks on the album wrapping up the tracks lowkey and jazzy vibe with a tight chorus. The second half of the record is filled with solid guest features and it starts off with the albums lead single Ibtihaj featuring GZA of Wu-Tang clan and a very rare appearance from D' Angelo of all people. D' Angelo has a great appearance on the tracks intro of sorts and then handles part of the hook and sounds as fresh as ever even under some vocal effects his amazing and classic R&B singing voice shines through. GZA is also fantastic on the song and his lyrical chemistry with Rapsody makes me wish that they would work together more frequently because he fits in perfectly here. Myrlie fires off with some great socially conscious bars that I love and while the hook isn't perfect the track does have a weird brief spoken word moment that I like quite a bit.
Michelle is the most fun song on the entire album with a bright beat and some fast punchy energy that is much more celebratory than serious and a nice break in the tracklist that I enjoy quite a bit. Iman is a decent track with an alright sung hook from SiR and a decent performance from Rapsody but JID completely steals the show right at the end of the song with another standout verse as he continues to have a great year in 2019 without dropping an album. Sojourner is a really interesting song that opens up with a long J. Cole verse as he also continues to deliver on feature after feature in 2019, Rapsody had surprisingly big shoes to fill following it up but she did so very effectively to make for a great song.
There are some tracks here that are close to being good but have some shortcomings. Serena is a decent track that heavily features a sample of the "Don't Stop" that is also used heavily in Sicko Mode and it is more than a little bit distracting especially for a song that isn't that great to begin with. Hatshepsut has a pretty solid beat but it features Queen Latifah in a guest spot and while there is plenty of history validating her talent she just does not shine alongside Rapsody here and the two do less for each other than I would have hoped going into it. Finally the closing track Afeni is good for the most part as Rapsody weaves some tight lyrics about black women and their place in society but the hook is purposefully mixed really low and it is such an ugly sound over the beat and compared to the really close mixed performance from that nearly wrecks the entire track.
There were really only a handful of songs I couldn't stand and the problem was usually that there was some decent wordplay or flows ruined by a terrible hook or a really generic beat. Aaliyah and Oprah both fall for these respectively and Tyra has both with a really rough hook and a beat that sounds like a terrible muddy mix of the beat from Drake's In My Feelings.
On Eve Rapsody once again wears her heart on her sleeve and proves why she more than belongs in the world of contemporary hip hop but my most major complaint from her past record is even more prominent here. At just over an hour long this album could loose a pretty significant portion of its runtime and be a lot better, there are a number of bad tracks or songs with key issues, and even some of the solid songs across the record go on for a whole verse too long or have strange wandering and unnecessary outros. Despite this the album triumphs in a lot of places and seriously shows off what makes Rapsody so interesting and she is consistently the highlight of many of these tunes, meaning I'm just as excited as ever to see what she may do next. 7/10
