UNLOCKED - Kenny Beats & Denzel Curry: EP Review
is the new collaborative EP from Florida rapper Denzel Curry and one of raps hottest producers Kenny Beats. The EP dropped with no singles attached to it and serves as the music behind a backing visual that saw the two downloading themselves into the internet to chase after leaked songs. They also claim that most of the beats and all of Curry's verses were recorded in just a 24 hour span.
Review By Lavender:
I am typically somebody who doesn't love these types of projects. Artists will take a shotgun approach to recording music and drop the output giving the project a unique story behind it, but the music often suffers as a result. I was more than willing to go into this project with open arms given that Denze and Kenny are both immensely talented and I've enjoyed so much music from them both in the past few years. Despite this Unlocked suffers from some of the same pitfalls as records of its type tend to, though the two artists talents manage to shine through more often than they don't.
Unlocked is 8 tracks and about 17 minutes in length although two of the songs Track 01 and Track 07 are short interlude style songs with only brief pieces of verses from Denzel. The beats on this record are definitely the strong point as Kenny's manic digital production is a treat on almost every song here. The only major complaint I have about the project is one that doesn't normally come from Denzel projects and I think its a result of the short time frame in which the EP was produced. There are about as many wack ass bars per song on this album as there were on the nee Eminem record, well, maybe not that many. But the lyrics are a massive weakness of this project and make some of Denzel's less exciting verses into an absolute slog. Take_It_Back_v2 and So.Incredible.pkg are the most average tracks on the record, the latter has a cool beat switch-up but they suffer from a lack of energy and some of the worst lyrics I've heard Denzel spit since that jizz boss line.
From here it gets better starting with Lay_Up.m4a and even though it does have some more lyrics I can live without the song does bang incredibly hard and both Denzel and Kenny are better here. Pyro (leak 2019) is even better as Curry has some absolute BARS across the song and gives one of his classic hard-hitting performances that is catchy and smooth as hell. DIET_ has my favorite beat on the EP with a wilf two step percussion pattern over which Denzel gets into some strange and gruff vocalizing that sounds badass and includes some of his catchiest refrains on the project. The song features some killer vocal manipulation both high and low and the whole song just rules. "Cosmic".m4a is another one of the better tracks that features the EP's smoothest beat which Denzel matches with some of his smoothest rapping, at least on the first verse. The second time around Denzel settles into some crazy vocalizing that sounds absolutely feral and shows how spectacular of a performer he is capable of being at his most exciting.
Unlocked isn't the best that Denzel Curry or Kenny Beats have ever sounded individually, but the rapidly transitioning sonically evolving 17 minutes of this record are uniquely unfocused and sporadic in a way that shows off both artists at their most raw. Despite it being so short there is plenty packed in here to listen to if you're a fan of either artist, but don't expect the best material you've ever heard. 6.5/10
