The Lost Boy - YBN Cordae: Review
is a Maryland raised rapper and member of the YBN Collective trio with YBN Nahmir and YBN Almighty Jay. Last year YBN Nahmir was selected as a XXL freshman and his solid performance brought more attention to the trio and at the end of the year they released their YBN: The Mixtape. On top of this YBN Cordae drew attention to himself with his response track to J. Cole's 1985 track from his KOD album and after being named a XXL Freshman in 2019 and releasing a number of well received singles expectations and hopes were high for his debut record.
Review By Lavender:
Ever since I first heard the sharply written argument Cordae made to J. Cole in his response track to 1985 I was anticipating what he would do next at every point for over a year. While I was very disappointed by the YBN Mixtape Cordae has been pretty much undefeated in 2019 thus far. He killed his XXL freshman cover opportunity delivering an excellent freestyle and an even better cypher performance, all while dropping a number of excellent singles throughout. Seeing that Chance The Rapper, Anderson Paak, Pusha T, Meek Mill and Ty Dolla $ign all featured on this record proved the industry backing that Cordae has and now that the album has dropped it is clear why so many artists want to be involved with him, Lost Boy lives up to all expectations.
Lets talk about those features after all, while in the trap age it isn't impossible to get some big names attatched to you early in your career, see BlocBoy JB or Playboi Carti, names like Pusha T and Chance The Rapper don't just show up for anybody. What makes this all even better is that on top of recognizing Cordae's potential, every single featured artist here gives a great performance on excellent songs. Chance is up first on Bad Idea which I adored as a single and I love just as much in the context of the record. It has a warm and hearty instrumental that matches Cordae's personal and vulnerable lyrics, the hook is incredibly tight and impossible to not get stuck in your head. Chance brings the perfect energy for the track and meets its warm attitude with an excellent guest verse that is better than literally anything on his album that released the same day.
RNP features Anderson Paak and production from J. Cole which surprisingly results in what sounds exactly like an Anderson Paak song. Anderson and Cordae have a ton of lyrical chemistry together and spend this entire track bouncing short verses in and out of each other with a simple but effective jazzy instrumental for yet another one of the best songs here. Way Back Home features an R&B and trap fusion instrumental that is warm and fits its two artists styles very well. Cordae mixes singing and rapping in a pretty solid and consistently catchy series of verses but Ty Dolla $ign attempts to steal the show with a short verse that keeps him undefeated in the feature game as he delivers as consistently as ever. Nightmares Are Real features a distant and haunting instrumental with some distant but weighty bells and whistles in its mix. Cordae meets this with some of his most cutthroat bars on the entire record and Pusha T does what he has done three or four times already this year and steals the show with an incredible featured performance. If there is one element of this track that I don't love its the hook which is fine in its own right but doesn't really fit in with the song at all and is much more of a smooth sounding hook that the hard hitting and impactful rest of the track.
The last blockbuster feature comes on the track We Gon Make It where Meek Mill not only delivers a pretty solid verse but also sings his ass off on the hook like I've never heard before. Seriously if you would have told me Meek sung the hook on this track before I listened to it I would have rolled my eyes but he really steals the show and combined with solid verses from Cordae makes for a good track. Even though J. Cole doesn't actually deliver a featured verse on this record his influence is all over this thing as numerous tracks here are dripping with his jazz rap stylings, for better or for worse. Have Mercy was one of the early singles for this thing and pulls from the J. Cole playbook in its jazz rap stylings. The track has a fantastic hook that transfers into the skit directly after it and while Cordae isn't the most capable singer in the world he makes up for it with some unique vocalizing that sells it. I liked this song a lot as a single and it has grown on me even more since then.
For an example of the J. Cole influence gone wrong look no further than Thousand Words and Been Around two of the only songs on the record that underwhelmed me. They pursue some tired jazz rap cliches and also stand out as some of the weakest lyrical moments the record has to offer. The much better approach to these lowkey tracks comes when there is a tight and coherent lyrical theme that Cordae sticks to tightly. Wintertime is the introductory track that typically is pretty solid lyrically save for a bar or two and with glittery keys and a tight drum and snare kick there is plenty of classic hip hop appeal that gets the record started off well. Thanksgiving is a warm conceptual song that dives into relationships. It is centered around bringing a girl home to meet your family on Thanksgiving and while the prospect starts off great Cordae seems to be thinking himself out of it by the end of the track and he brings up some of the things concerning him about it with great lyrics and a convincing and believable attitude about the situation. The best of these lyrical tracks is Family Matters which sees Cordae playing psychologist for members of his extended family as one refrain after another follows members of his family and the issues they face from violence to addiction to things as mundane as falling out of love. The song not only sticks tightly to its excellent lyrical theme but also remains creative in its lyricism and execution for one of the best songs on the record.
Two of my favorite songs on The Lost Boy are two where Cordae breaks his typical style and the experimentation that results is satisfying every time. Broke As Fuck is a straight forward trap song with lyrics that engage typical themes of the genre but do so with so much more poise and calculated execution than his contemporaries it is very impressive hearing somebody turn a genre often seen as lyrically devoid into an impressive written performance. Not to mention when he drops the first major flow switchup about halfway through the track he transitions into an absolutely fire series of bars that bring the verse to a close in a flash of excellent songwriting. Finally the last song I want to discuss is the closing track Lost & Found which has grown on me a LOT. The horns in the instrumental are fantastic but what really shines here is Cordae's amazing lyrics. He manages to wrap references and double entendres around each other in a tight series of bars that covers so much ground it is absolutely dizzying on your first time through. But reading the lyrics or listening to the song enough to pick up on what all he is saying is something I absolutely recommend as he absolutely kills this one. It is such a brilliant pick for the end of the record too as it keeps the sound of the album fresh right as it is going off and ends the record on an overwhelmingly positive note.
Combining the consistency with which Cordae executes on this record with the variety of sounds he indulges in and the comfortable flow of the tracklist and its skits there is a lot to love about listening to The Lost Boy as a full length experience. While Cordae is not afraid to wear his influences on his sleeve, most obviously J. Cole, he is clearly bringing enough of his own attitude in performance and lyricism to set him out from the crowd of imitators. With a star studded list of musicians lending a hand to the production and delivering featured verses on this record there was a lot of ways that Cordae himself could be smothered in the mix, so it is all the more impressive that his personality is one of the things that shines the brightest through this record. Whether it is delivering personal and vulnerable lyrics or rapping his bars in a charming and unique style all his own Cordae already has the mic presence and attitude of a veteran MC, and The Lost Boy is one of the most impressive debut rap albums I've heard in years. 8.5/10
