Slime & B - Young Thug/Chris Brown: Review
Review By Lavender:
I didn't really have any time to prepare my expectations for this mixtape give that there were no real singles for the project and it was basically surprised dropped in the middle of the week. But had I had the time to develop expectations for the record I think I would have ended up anticipating this thing to be exactly what it is. The beats here are simple and the songs are inconsistent but when Thugger and Chris Brown bring their strongest personality to the fold they can make some great tracks.
The opening track is an example of the pairing going right. The song Say You Love Me is a slick laid back R&B crooner with some understated but absolutely methodical rapping from Thugger. The song is honestly pretty average but it's a decent taster for a lot of the better moments on the record. The record keeps up its momentum too on the next track Go Crazy which comes right out of the bouncy late 2000's R&B style that Chris Brown is just made for. Thugger also susrpises and sounds great on the song and genuinely seems to unearth some more intimate emotions through his performance that makes the track just buttery smooth from start to finish.
The record hits a little bit of a lull after this but picks up big time in the second half. Animal is genuinely one of the best and most emotional songs here as Chris Brown is just singing his ass off in a way that grabs me and holds me tight throughout the track. City Girls is a fun and hilarious track with a great interpolation of a City Girls song and some fun and hilarious bars laced throughout it. The highlight of the song has to be the charisma that Thugger and Chris bring to the song and how smooth they both fit into it together. Stolen has a pretty catchy beat that once again sees Chris Brown giving another big time performance to the point where he has owned the track by the point Young Thug shows up, yet he still manages to drop a really solid verse and round out a great song. Undrunk is a song that just fucking rules not only is the idea of getting undrunk pretty funny but the song has a flat out hilarious attitude backed by its great features. E-40 and Too $hort show up and drop some laugh out loud funny contributions to the song and the whole final product is a big favorite of mine.
The weakest part of the record unfortunately is the rest of the features, which surprised me given that usually the features on a mixtape like this are great. She Bumped Her Head is a totally standard Thugger and Gunna trap affair and while I don't outright hate any part of it there is nothing separating it from the flood of songs these two have been on together over the past few years. Big Slimes is even worse as Gunna actively sucks on this song and so does Lil Durk, I continue to question why Thugger doesn't search out better features for his projects. Although this is far from the best Young Thug performance I've ever heard so maybe this whole song should have been thrown away. The closing track Help Me Breath is a little bit of a letdown as well unfortunately I was excited to see Thugger and Future team up over a Wheezy beat but ultimately this track is pretty average by the standards of their typical collaborations.
The record doesn't have that many truly bad songs some of the weaker moments are simply forgettable like No Such Thing or I Ain't Tryin. Trap Back has a good hook that is attention grabbing at first but goes on for way too long with no meaningful change. Thugger's verse is decent but by that point in the song I am already mostly bored. I Got Time is the one song on the record with an emo rap or cloud rap style beat that I knew was coming. While both Thugger and Chris and good vocalists this song sounds just as much like they are bascially just riffing rather than actually performing a song and the result is a tolerable but forgettable tune.
Slime & B has all the makings of a spur of the moment meeting of the minds mixtape, but isn't quite as good as some of the coolest collaborations of the like over the past few years. The two certainly aren't phoning it in but points across this record either have poorly thought out tacked on features or just plain forgettable and out-dated songwriting. While I'm sure a handful of these songs will be moderate hits and make it onto some big playlists this summer I think this is just a good but not great mixtape we probably won't be talking much about next year. 6/10
Album Cover Review by Tyler Judson: Interesting mixture of illustration and photo work. This style has come back into popularity in the past couple of years and it's something I'm really fond of if done well. This is very successful in it's composition, color palette and use of text. I especially like the references the type has to the style of illustration. The black and white portrait is also nicely integrated. 6/10
For more contemporary rap check out my review of Drake's Dark Lane Demo Tapes here
