Rapid Fire Reviews: Contemporary Rap Album You're Surely Talking About

We're at that time of year where I try to cover as much as I possibly can before 2021 is out and that starts with some of the albums that have spawned quite a bit of discourse. These are rap records that came out over the past month or so and inspired Instagram rap page admin discussion, profuse memeing and second hand listening experiences outside bumping car windows. 

Expensive Pain - Meek Mill

Is it just me or was there a lot more discussion about Meek like, two years ago. Obviously during the Drake beef and Dreams Worth More Than Money era he was quite the headline grabber but even in recent years during his very public battle with the legal system I just saw a lot more people talking about him. This record seems like it's gonna chart pretty well and it certainly attracted the attention of a number of high profile mainstream hip hop artists, but I can't shake the feeling that it's his most culturally inessential album to date. As a pop culture observer that's an interesting thing but as a critic its meaningless, plenty of acts release their best records when nobody is looking and they very often fail to get the credit they deserve. Given that I thought Meek's last record was pretty decent I was actually kind of looking forward to this but I'll be the first one to admit Expensive Pain doesn't do as much for me. These instrumental have a glamorous and soulful sound to them but fail to sell it because they are just so boring. While there's the occasional feature that gives a solid performance, primarily Young Thug, the guests on the record are punching under their collective weight throughout. Most of the beat tracks here are Meek solo when he is either dialing up the intensity for a short burst of energy or going outside the box and doing something wild. While this isn't the most tedious trap record I've ever heard on account of the bassline of talent Meek infuses into it, this thing feels like every second of its 50 minute runtime and more. Meek almost feels like he's in a weird in-between point between new and old rap artists. He never really commits to the level of aggression or braggadocio that makes so many young new artists feel so fresh and eclectic. But on the other hand he still hasn't developed quite enough of a poignant pen to craft songs that deliver meaningful messages and observations about life consistently. Whether its unnecessarily polished trap ballads that completely miss the point or bangers that are only halfway committed to banging I'm left wondering what Meek's definitive sound or direction even is anymore. This is far from the worst album I've ever heard or anything like that, in fact I think I enjoyed it more than I didn't. But it consistently does very little to elevate itself or give me any reason to want to revisit it. 5.5/10

The Melodic Blue - Baby Keem

Baby Keem has been one of the major rising stars this year in the world of contemporary hip hop. He started turning major heads with a pair of singles from this record featuring high profile collaborators like Travis Scott and Keem's own cousin Kendrick Lamar. If that wasn't enough on its own Kendrick's kooky and hilarious performance on the admittedly pretty good song range brothers has become one of the defining rap memes of the decade thus far. As impressive as Baby Keem has been this is before all else a debut album and it falls into one of the major hallmarks of rap debuts, wearing its influences on its sleeve. However there are two things going for Baby Keem in that regard, the first being that he is extremely versatile on this record covering lyrical territory that is pretty serious all the way to charming and even silly. He also proves himself to be a pretty capable rapper throughout the entire project and yet there are also songs where he impresses as a singer, albeit in that crooner trap kind of way. This makes an equal amount of solid bangers as their are more introspective cuts on the record. The other thing Keem has going for him is that the influences he pulls from are generally high impact and historically successful ones. On the more high brow side of things there's no denying that Kendrick is a big influence on Keem when he decides to go a bit more serious. Much more apparent on the surface from the beat choices and singing style is that Keem considers himself capable of holding up with of trap music premiere crooners. Trippie Redd and Playboi Carti sounds pop up all over this record from Trippie trademark strain and Carti's ever popular baby voice, they are clearly the two biggest influences on Keem's sound. There are honestly parts of the record that remind me of XXXTENTACION which I certainly can't complain about. Overall I think the album is pretty impressive even if like most rap records these days it's pretty bloated at nearly an hour and there are certainly some tracks I'd cut. With all that being said this is one of the more impressive trap records I've heard this year and one of the better and most promising rap debuts in recent memory. I have a feeling this won't be anywhere near the last time I'm talking about Baby Keem. 7/10

Sincerely, Kentrell - Youngboy Never Broke Again

There are plenty of artists throughout history who have a drastic difference in perception between music fans and music critics. Youngboy may be perhaps one of the most drastic examples I've ever seen with legions of fans defending his music online and streaming it up to multiple chart topping records. What few critics have actually covered his music certainly haven't been rapturous by any means, but it's the general critical silence that is deafening. As a critic, I totally get it. What could you possibly say about Sincerely, Kentrell? This album is 19 tracks and nearly an hour in length that is exclusively made up of featureless identically composed, produced and performed trap crooners that run from 2 to 4 minutes each. This record doesn't take any risks that turn out great, it doesn't take any risks that turn out disastrous, it doesn't take anything that could even be remotely considered risky. I'm not even sure how a reviewer could pick any single song out of the tracklist to have comments on, or one that they enjoyed more than any other because they are all made to sound exactly the same with a pinpoint precision and musical lethality that I find somehow impressive. I know for most people a record so generic and tightly formed would be a disaster, just the sheer death of music. But I actually find it kind of impressive how mechanically NBA Youngboy manages to execute his formula from the production to the bars to the hooks. The bassline for lyricism in rap these days is really just to not be actively horrible, and Youngboy isn't. The sound of trap music is pretty homogenized and the beats on this record fit right in. The songs have nothing to do with each other, come in a seemingly random order, and could be slipped into the playlist of a party without anyone batting an eye or even acknowledging their prescence. This feels like contemporary raps answer to ambient music in its truest intent. When I listen to Music For Airports I am entranced by the sound play and the way that chords drift through the composition seeming so formless until you see the bigger picture. Listening to Sincerely Kentrell is like watching an infomercial, I just see right through it, not taking any single element in. This record isn't great, terrible, loud, quiet, grimy or sleek. It isn't anything. Or maybe it's everything. Most people don't care about music in the same way that pedantic internet music critics like me do and I certainly don't blame them for that. But I find the rigid, unwavering monotony of this record sort of fascinating. 5/10