Rapid Fire Reviews: One More Rap Roundup with Nas, Issa Gold and Metro Boomin

King's Disease III - Nas

Unlike the bar on the opening track where Nas says he "doesn't drop often", this is the third album in the KD series in as many years. The combination of Nas and Hit-Boy has been pumping out songs recently and while I thought the first King's Disease was just okay, the second one really did impress me. So if Nas took another step forward on the third edition it has the potential to be one of his best albums since Illmatic. At the very least Nas pulls off the level of lyrical proficiency you'd expect, as does Hit-Boy with the beats. Even when this record isn't operating at its best it does at least sound good. One of the primary issues I have with the album gets back to the recent over-exposure of Nas as this record sounds extremely familiar. From the beats to the hooks to the subject matter Nas is rapping about there's just a lot here that feels closer to routine. Thankfully, I still find the music here pretty exciting, and even if it's a bit top-heavy in terms of highlights you never really go too far on the album without a highlight. The second song on the record Legit is a great little meditation on Nas "going legit" despite expectations. The song calls back to plenty of notable moments in his history and delivers some well-earned flexing. 30 is a short but grand track with a killer beat and flows that unfold for 90 straight seconds of fire. The contrast to this would be the run right in the middle of the record starting with the second half of Reminisce and going through Serious Interlude and WTF SMH where the quality starts to really slip. Most of the incredibly wack bars on the record show up in this portion as well. It's particularly funny because the triumphant I'm On Fire is right in the middle of all this and is one of the best and most topically focused songs on the entire record. The last huge highlight on the record is Beef which has a confrontational performance matched by an intense beat, it works as both an individual song and a rush of energy just before the album's more earnest closer. This is a pretty solid record as you'd expect given the talent involved, but it never really takes that next step to be great. Whether it's with tracks that I really think should have been left off or the fact that there are a lot more good songs than great ones, this record doesn't quite eclipse its predecessor. Despite that if you like Nas or the sound of classic hip hop there is plenty of worthwhile music to be found in this tracklist. 7/10.

Tempus Act II: Mirrors - Issa Gold

I wasn't necessarily expecting to be paying attention to a 30-minute solo project from Issa Gold of The Underachievers in 2022, but I have a reason. Last year during what felt like a bit of a hip-hop drought in late summer I took a shot on Tempus, the predecessor to this record, and I was surprised by how much I liked it. So when this project dropped I wanted to make sure I followed up on what managed to be quite the unexpected treat last year. On the instrumental front, this record has a very laid-back but occasionally quite extravagant style that sounds like some of the glitzier Conway The Machine songs though Issa Gold's delivery is a bit more direct. On the lyrical side of things there's a recurring motif across this record that will be familiar to rap fans and that's basketball. With song titles like Lamelo, Traded, Swish, and though it might be an accident. Rockets, you can tell how deeply ingrained into the lyricism and themes these basketball references are. While it is cool I can't say Issa Gold's take on the idea is any wittier or more involved than the dozens of other artists that have done the exact same thing. A much bigger complaint for me on the record is just how much of it sounds so samey. Though there are some notable exceptions like Potter, Crawling, and Indulge, for the most part, you will hear refrains, flows, and even lyrics that cover VERY similar ground across the record's runtime. This was never something I had a problem with or really even noticed about the first Tempus, but here I just can't ignore it. The saving grace of the record and the main reason I wanted to make sure I covered it is that the observations on the lyrical front get really interesting on the album's much more introspective second half. It really does create a tale of two halves for the record with the first half feeling generic, impersonal, and underwhelming. By comparison when Issa Gold starts to introspect and retrospect everything gets a lot more interesting at least in terms of what is being said. It really does save a record that I was otherwise not that interested in and serves to at least keep me kind of interested in whatever Issa Gold does next and whether or not it lives up to his potential. 6/10

HEROES & VILLAINS - Metro Boomin

Thanks to years of collaborations with high-profile artists and catchy producer tags laced across all of his work Metro Boomin has become one of the rare producers to become just as popular as the artists he works with. Not only does that mean his producer albums sell remarkably well, but also that the biggest talent in contemporary rap line up to work with him, and on Heroes & Villains there's absolutely no shortage of talent. But let me get one thing out of the way quickly, Metro is still the star of this record as his beats deliver impressive intensity and versatility throughout. Not only does have often craft a great sonic space for his collaborators to operate in but does a pretty good job of picking the perfect collaborators as well. Though he takes the villains part of the album's title a bit too seriously by inviting Chris Brown on, (and arguably Don Toliver and Travis Scott as well, depending on who you ask) for the most part this is an impressively stacked selection of features. Aside from Metro there are two other stars of this show and the first in Young Thug. He only appears on the record twice for what I think are pretty obvious reasons. The first time around he rescues the otherwise boring track Trance from a tepid and underwritten Travis Scott performance. The other time is the song Metro Spider where he just completely takes over for two minutes and change which results in the most obvious highlight on the entire record. The other star is 21 Savage who shows up much more across the album and pretty much delivers one exciting lethal performance after another. Pretty much every time 21 is on a song it turns out to be a highlight. Umbrella with Young Nudy, Creepin' with The Weeknd, Niagra Falls with Travis Scott, and Walk Em Down with Mustafa are all among the best tracks this record has to offer and Savage is a big reason why. While I'm here I also want to shout out the closing track Feel The Fiyaaaah which not only sounds great and features a solid A$AP Rocky performance but also feels like an appropriate farewell to both the record and to Takeoff. This record certainly isn't a nonstop parade of fire but it delivers a number of highlights and even on the tracks that don't quite keep the quality standard up, the production is good throughout. It certainly shows off a measure of achievement that very few pure producers can achieve, but Metro Boomin is comfortably capable of it. 6.5/10