#bandman

Bandman is no exception. It’s 30 minutes too long, and only posse cuts make it stick. Javar never really raps; he’s more like a grumpy uncle saying raw and outrageous stuff over the beat. If it’s really outrageous, like his verse on “Wrong with Me” (which remains the most ignorant 30 seconds of rap music of the past two years), it works. His best lines stay with you for a long time (“I ain’t worried about that little cheese you’re flashing I already ate” from this tape, for example). But if he just spits out the regular “street” lines, like hundreds of other artists do, it tires the listener very fast. “Money 2” is one of the worst tracks here. When you hear rhymes like “AR on the table, I ain’t worry ‘bout no haters”, or “We don’t have that type of props, that is why they keep getting shot,” they don’t even make you chuckle. 

When Javar brings female guest stars to trade bars and get male-female perspective in the middle of the album (on tracks “What Was Said” and “All New”), it brings some freshness to the stale topics of the mean streets. It goes downhill from there. The Detroit MC is clearly a sprinter, not a long distance runner. Thankfully, his team members come for help, and six posse cuts make the tape worth a listen. Javar makes a 25-30 seconds appearance, delivers a few pounds of ignorance and fades into the background. And that’s all he’s good for. A few cuts on Bandman would make for good singles, but the whole tape is a slog.