Rapid Fire Reviews: Prolific Rappers with Conway The Machine, billy woods & Kenny Segal, Black Thought & El Michels Affair
I think it would be funny if this piece just included me reviewing all THREE of the projects Youngboy has dropped in the first half of the year but I already ruined it by covering the first one back in January, RIP.
Maps - billy woods & Kenny Segal
WON'T HE DO IT - Conway The Machine
Griselda rapper Conway The Machine is on a hot streak. The first of his projects I formally covered was 2020s From A King To A God which I thought was just okay but it didn't take long for him to one-up himself on the next year's mixtape La Maquina. He then turned around the very next year and dropped by far his best project to date and one of the best Griselda projects period God Don't Make Mistakes, so despite his prolific release schedule there was plenty of reason to be excited for this. Unfortunately, it becomes pretty clear on this record that Conway is serving up some form of leftovers with this tracklist as the songs feel consistently undercooked. The easiest place to tell is on the instrumental side of things with beast served up throughout the album that have the masquerading intensity and reserved darkness fans are familiar with but with gimmicky or goofy additions that kill the impact. The songs also have a huge problem with structure, not that Conway has ever been one for straightforward verse chorus verse outings, but the aimless verse fests and weak hooks on the album do consistently underwhelm. These songs would have been a much better fit for an EP of B-Sides that only runs about half as long and they aren't helped by the expectations of putting them in a full tape following up your best work less than a year later.
While I'm here though, I might as well talk about some of the record's highlights. Once again guest rapper Jae Skeese shows up and totally steals the show on a great collab track The Reason. The song has a booming but glamorous demeanor that sort of breaks the mold for these Griselda albums and hearing the pair go back-to-back is extremely satisfying. I also think Brick Fare is a pretty familiar note for Conway to hit on and one that he's done well plenty of times. I also wanna say that even on some incomplete songs features from Fabolous and Ransom are some of the best moments on the record, even outshining Conway's fellow Griselda boys who normally kill it on each others tracks. This record isn't awful given how high Conway's floor is, but it has a severe lack of complete songs and feels more like Conway clearing out the vault before moving on to something more significant. 4.5/10
One day I'll give billy woods a full review given that I've listened to every project he's put out in the last decade-plus, they just always somehow slip through the cracks. It helps that despite the fact that I do enjoy his music I've always felt both hit output and his performances are more inconsistent than some of the experimental hip-hop fans who really worship the ground he walks on. One of the places where he was at his best was last years Aethiopes where billy and producer Preservation served up some of the best and coldest songs of his entire career. That's why I was pretty excited for Maps which is a sequel of sorts to billy and Kenny's last collaboration Hidden Places back in 2019 which I once again liked even if I wasn't as crazy about it as some. As you might expect from one of billy's project this record also comes with a who's who of underground rappers featuring on it like Danny Brown, Quelle Chris, E L U C I D, and Aesop Rock. While as usual, there are some songs on here that are really just non-starters for me, there's also a number of wonderful high-grade performances, and the quality of the instrumentals throughout is wonderful.
Those instrumentals really are a big reason to dive into this record. While many of the longer songs here have instrumentals that are impactful but admittedly familiar, there are also moments normally on shorter songs where Kenny lets himself wander. Blue Smoke for example is a much livelier and more jazz-influenced instrumental than I ever anticipated and just a few tracks later on Babylon By Bus the record shifts to a more intense and up-tempo style. As is often the case when I cover billy's records there are just some songs here that flat-out don't work for me. With the absolute snail pacing he chooses to take sometimes the refrains and conceptuality really need to be there so on songs like Rapper Weed and Hangman I'm not really sure what I'm there for. Thankfully there are also plenty of tracks where he totally fulfills the promise of his confrontational delivery and unique lyrical focus. For example, even though I don't find the flows all that compelling I do love the image billy paints of himself as a fly-by-night live performer on Soundcheck and his performance on the previously mentioned Babylon By Bus is completely lethal. While hooks are not often the main draw of a billy woods album I do think this record features some memorable outings in that regard as well. billy himself handles a wordy but very memorable chorus on The Layover which is immediately followed by the single Facetime which sports Sam Herring of Future Islands in a big highlight role. I think this record is yet another solid outing from billy even if I continue to have some complaints here and there that I think hold him back from reaching his true potential. Unlike his second album of last year Church where it felt more like he was coasting on the elements that have come to define his artistry, Maps is an exciting indulgence into reserved but unabashedly raw hip-hop. 7/10
Glorious Game - El Michels Affair & Black Thought
Black Thought has long been one of my favorite rappers around. He has as much classic material as anyone as a member of The Roots, and impressed me with his recent Streams Of Thought series. But the biggest highlight of Black Thought's in recent years came on his collaborative record with Dangermouse last year Cheat Codes which really lived up to its name with the two veterans serving up one vintage hip-hop outing after another. With all of that plus some great singles I was really excited to see where a new collaboration between Thought and soul/jazz group El Michels Affair would go. Four of these twelve tracks were dropped as singles and I like them all quite a bit from the more focused hip-hop stylings of Grateful and I'm Still Somehow to the more soulful outings like Glorious Game and That Girl.
And the highlights absolutely do not stop with the singles. Protocol is a warm expression of injustice with a wonderful hook courtesy of Son Little and a pair of incredibly slick verses packed full of great wordplay in service of a deserving point from Black Thought. I Would Never features some of Black Thought's most intense bars but the song is far from a blitz throughout and it knows just when to dial things back. One thing this album doesn't have is duds. Seriously through and through these 12 tracks there isn't a single one I don't like and certainly nothing I would consider cutting out. The slim 31 minutes of absolutely wonderful jazz rap is a treat that even exceeded my high expectations for the record. I didn't think Black Thought was capable of one-upping Cheat Codes but this record might just put that theory to the test. Despite the slightly different musical palettes on display both records feature veteran poise that almost nobody else can offer and like Cheat Codes last year, Glorious Game is sure to end up among my favorite rap records of 2023. 8.5/10
