Rapid Fire Reviews: Hip Hop Collaborations
The first collection of rapid fire review of 2021 comes from a collection of hip hop collaborations that unfortunately I didn't get around to reviewing earlier in the year. Some of the projects are short and some are from very prolific release series but they all were worth commenting on before the year got too far along.
Your Old Droog/Tha God Fahim - Tha Wolf On Wall St
While this is a short outing from the pair of underground MC's at just 27 minutes I like it quite a bit. The beats are interesting some of them are more conventional lowkey hip hop outings but there are a few really interesting instrumentals in the mix as well. Droog is his typical blend of stone-faced and confident and Fahim mostly keeps up with the exception of a track or two where he shows off rhyme schemes that feel below his pen game. The record features numerous slick interpolations of sampled vocals that I find super interesting as the transitions between songs and only really has one or two beats that I see as by the numbers or underwhelming. While neither of the Mach-Hommy features really blow me away they certainly don't ruin the record and don't really appear on any of its best tracks. This definitely feels like a collaboration that had a lot of thought and careful execution put into it as Droog and Fahim fit together really well and reinforce each others style in a way that hip hop fans will definitely want to hear this year. 7.5/10
Your Old Droog/Tha God Fahim - The YOD Fahim
Compared to their first collaboration of 2021, YOD Fahim is much less impressive despite being longer with a more fleshed out tracklist. The shorter less structured tracks give way to many more throwaway beats and some bars from both MC's that feel like total struggle bars when the focus is clearly meant to be so strongly on the lyricism. The record has a loose concept centering around the basketball references laced into nearly every song but it's the details that the record lacks. While there are certainly some great performances in the mix across the record there are a lot of forgettable moments or worse, moments that are memorable for the wrong reason. With how prolific both of these rappers are there are bound to be projects that don't live up to the standards of their discography as a whole and this is unfortunately one of them. 5.5/10
Conway The Machine/Big Ghost Ltd. - If It Bleeds It Can Be Killed
This new release from the prolific Griselda records crew sees Conway teaming up with one time internet phenom Big Ghost for their 2nd collaboration in as many years. Coming in at just under 30 minutes it's a feature heavy set of tracks that will sound very familiar to anybody who has been listening to the Griselda catalog recently. The same highlights ensue with some absolutely cutthroat tracks built around ruthless beats as well as some surprisingly genuine moments that stand out as emotional highlights. Unfortunately there are also some songs that share similar flaws with other projects. Not all features are equal and this record makes that extremely clear with some of its weaker verses but even Conway has moments where he slows it down to a crawl and the lyricism doesn't quite hold up. Ultimately its a mixed set of songs but one that certainly features a number of worthwhile highlights one would expect given the talent involved. 6/10
