Rapid Fire Reviews: Unconscious Rap? with Killer Mike, McKinley Dixon, & Swizz Beatz

Michael - Killer Mike

Run The Jewels rapper Killer Mike has long been a favorite of mine. When I was first really getting into hip-hop his last solo album R.A.P Music was still pretty fresh in people's minds and the landmark second Run The Jewels album was right around the corner. Pretty quickly his distinct cadence and intensity became familiar to me. In the time I've been reviewing music he has predominately been just that, one half of Run The Jewels. The groups music is often full of personality but with more sledgehammer blow than earnest reflection. So hearing Mike gear up to deliver us the most personal record of his entire career so far got me pretty excited. 

One thing that has me pumping the breaks on that hype were underwhelming singles. RUN and TALK'N THAT SHIT are both just okay and their intensity has dulled on me since I first heard them last year. I also have mixed feelings about the record's most talked about track so far Scientists & Engineers. The track kicks off with a pretty great Andre 3000 feature but Killer Mike kind of fumbles it with an embarrassing ass flow. It doesn't completely ruin the song but it definitely caps its potential. Mike kind of does the same thing again later on the record with SPACESHIP VIEWS which has a fantastic Curren$y feature but the hook falls flat and Mike raps about being a landlord.

There are highlights in the mix though. I liked the other two singles a LOT. Motherless is a very emotional cut centered around mother figures in Mike's life. The song is smart enough to also sonically center women around the sound of the track itself. Don't Let The Devil is a total banger which features EL-P and could easily have been slipped into the tracklist of any RTJ record so far. Even more than on the albums hardest-hitting bangers, Mike is at his best when he's telling great stories. Something For Junkies is a song I love more and more every time I heard it and one whose story is worth diving into every bit of. SHED TEARS sees Mike reflecting on hard times with poignant lyrical detail and the gospel choir is deployed perfectly to heighten his lyrics and story-telling. One song on the record I go back and forth on a lot is SLUMMER, The track features more great storytelling and gospel arrangements and is technically quite impressive. But it has an attitude that I find kind of difficult to swallow sometimes. Moments on this song where Killer Mike feels like he's talking down to everyone involved and everyone listening make it difficult for me to call it one of my favorite songs on the record. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that attitude is a big problem on Michael. While Killer Mike's output and influence is certainly worth taking a victory lap over, some of his boasts conjure up a "show me don't tell me" type of critique. Any fair reading of the text will tell you that this is a pretty technically proficient album that does a good job displaying why Mike is special. But it also packs on a bit more than it needed to in the tracklist and arguably gives itself one too many pats on the back throughout. 6.5/10

Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? - McKinley Dixon

McKinley Dixon is a Virginia rapper who I first heard of from probably the same place many other music dorks did, Mark Grondin of Spectrum Pulse. His endorsement of Dixon's 2021 album For My Mama And Anyone That Look Like Her was so loud it was impossible to ignore. While I did listen to the album and like it, it didn't blow me away with the same magnitude. But I kept an eye on McKinley because I saw the immense potential he put on display. Last year he showed up for an extremely memorable moment on Soul Glo's wonderful album Diaspora Problems and this year he's been releasing singles for months leading up to this new album, his first on City Sland records.

I'll be the first one to admit that I sat with this record for a WHILE trying to iron out my thoughts on it. At first I saw the talent on display but felt some of the experiments were a bit too brash even for their own good. Then as I started to familiarize myself with even the record's most confrontational moments I fell pretty much head over heels with it. Before I got the chance to review it the music started to slip on me a bit again and now I'm swinging back. So let's talk about it before I change my mind a tenth time. One thing that has stayed pretty consistent is that this record gets off to an absolute world-class start. Spoken-word poet Hanif kicks the record off perfectly and the transition into the wonderful orchestration of Sun, I Rise is absolutely perfect. It goes on though Mezzanine Trippin which has a brash hook that is jarring at first but feels pretty appropriate for the subject matter. Both the song's verses are fantastically unique and both remind me a LOT of Flatbush Zombies at their very best. After that comes the single Run, Run, Run a jazz rap anthem that could be Dixon's closest thing to a hit song. It had a familiar jazzy chorus and tight drum sample and sounds life-affirming and infectious despite the subject matter it tackles.

Live At The Kitchen Table is the first song I'm not head over heels for and I'm just not sure it ever assembles into something on the same level as much of the other tracks. The second half of the record is quite as fantastic as its first but there are still highlights. Dedicated To Tar Feather is a gorgeous ode that I liked more and more every time I heard it. The title track is a meaningful way to close the record off and despite its simplicity, Tyler, Forever has one of the album's best hooks. For some reason making any kind of judgment on this record feels like an overreaction to Dixon's recent buzz and an under-reaction to his raw talent at the same time. It's been a while since a record challenged me in this specific way as a reviewer but after an exhaustive amount of listens I'm confident in saying that this is a challenging yet very rewarding rap album that I like a lot. Unlike some of his "experimental" or "underground" peers McKinley Dixon really does feel like he's both pushing the envelope but also supplementing it with tons of raw talent underneath. Even if not every single diatribe on this relatively short album is a home run, it's still a very strong listening experience throughout. 8/10

Hip Hop 50. Vol. 2 EP - Swizz Beats

This Ep is the second in a series of projects spearheaded by Nas and Mass Appeal that seek to tell the history of hip-hop through its producers. Part one was handled by DJ Premier last year and I really enjoyed it, so I was pretty excited to see a volume 2 emerge after I thought the series might have just been canceled. Much like the first edition this one is handled by a producer, in this case, Swizz Beats, and features a strong collection of featured artists in the tracklist. Here's something I wasn't expecting. This EP gets off to an absolutely disastrous start.

Runaway is the opener which is built around a REALLY annoying sample. It has a super mediocre Nas performance that doesn't save the song. Similarly, This Shit Right Here is also just way too much and has yet another actively annoying sample. While Lil Wayne gets closer to saving it than Nas does, it's still not great. And to complete the trilogy we have Take Em Out which features absolutely nobody on their A-game. It also kicks off with bars calling out "mumble rap" and "melodic rap" which is particularly funny given how much the song sucks and how much better the song helmed by Lil Durk and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie is. The one song on the record that I really like won't surprise you. Because one of my most toxic traits is that I like Jay Electronica I can't help but love his performance on the closing track Khalas. I was pretty excited for this project to continue on the Hip Hop 50 series but jesus, what a fall off. I guess this is what I should have expected all along since most artists probably aren't delivering their best material to a project like this. Still given how good the first volume was I can't help but be pretty disappointed. 4.5/10