#rapreview

This is my review of the song ‘Pray for Me’ by Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd. This song is the third song released from the new ‘Black Panther’ soundtrack, dropping on the 9th of February. 

(I’m sort of new to reviewing music so I will be playing with layouts and areas to talk about. I enjoy a lot of music and am passionate about it in general. I am mostly into Rap/Hip-Hop. I am in no way a genius in any of the topics I discuss, this is very opinion based, but I will keep an open mind and do my best to be unbiased. Stay tuned if you like what I’m doing.)

Production -

The instrumental to this song is good. Nothing overly complex. I feel like I can hear what it's trying to sound like, but it wasn't 100% figured out. 

Hook -

The hook is alright, done by the Weeknd. Sounds similar to a few other Weeknd songs. Not overly interesting.

Verse(s) - - Kendrick’s part is good. His enthusiasm is better than on All The Stars but not as good as King’s dead. He seems to aimlessly preach, but like a lot of other parts of these songs, they seem made for a movie... Because they are...

like - 

The drums in the background are nice. Weeknd’s voice is nice on most songs.

dislike - 

It's not overly interesting, which is very opinion based. To me, it just lacks substance.

Overall Layout - 

The song is laid out like a hit. It has the Weeknd repeating his hook, with a small ‘rap’ verse. 

Overall Opinion -

The song is a hit for sure and is definitely alright for what it is. Like I have preached in the past, I'm a fan of mainly rap and experiment. I like it though, it's alright. 6/10

Chief Keef is a polarizing figure to say the least.

Some people treat him like a virus that needs to be incenirated before he can spread. Most “hip Hop heads” think his music is the epitome of trash, packaged and sold to the lowest IQ level, a common fear being that his music sets back a music genre that always had trouble being taken seriously. Parents fear this 18 year old from Chicago, believing that the idolization of gang life will encourage their children into similar footsteps.

Others love him for his no holds barred, gritty description of gang life in the slums of Chicago (which he lovingly refers to as “Chiraq”). Chief Keef doesn’t censor himself, look no futher than the video for “I Don’t Like” where guns are being flashed at the camera for the proof of that.

I fall into the second camp of people, I love this dude.

It really comes down to intensity. Rappers before Chief Keef have done all the subject matter he tackles, it’s nothing new. NWA and Ice T are some of the first that come to mind. In some odd way however, Chief Keef made it feel new again. At this point in time, rappers causing controversy for lyrics and behavior is something we expect. News stations that had previously covered rap music and its “negative effects” non-stop had stopped paying attention. Thats why the media storm that followed Chief Keefs arrival on the scene was glorious.

Suddenly all eyes were on the drill scene, opening the eyes of mainstream to the gang violence that had engulfed the inner cities of Chicago. It had always been talked about, artist like Lupe Fiasco, Common and even Kanye West had mentioned in their lyrics how Chicago was slowly losing itself to violence. An extreme slap in the face was needed to really make everyone listen and pay attention. Chief Keef slapped so hard that everyone woke up.

Which makes it all the more heart breaking that his second studio album, “Nobody”, is horrible.

The execution of this album on the most basic level is pretty horrendous. The production is all over the place with beats that sound muddy and unpolished. Bass, treble and mids just seem to blend together into an unappealling mess. The beats sound about a soccer pitchs lenght behind the vocals, leaving it practically impossible to catch on to any texture or details of the instrumentation. Chief Keef’s vocals usually consist of three different vocal takes, two of them overdubbed over each other and one of them just to repeat the last line he said. It’s a pattern that repeats throughout the album, and if it sounds redundant it’s because it is. Also wrapping the vocals on most tracks is a heavy coating of autotune that twist and mangles Keefs voice into a robotic grind. Although robotic is a term I use ironicly because the autotune is the only thing that gives the vocals any emotion or feeling. Keef insist on performing each song in mumbles and slurs and you can practically hear him thinking “I really don’t want to be here right now” on each track. It’s really quite spectacular. This is the musical embodiment of “no fucks given”, a sentiment proven on the track “Almost”. This song was the first song on the album that I was actually enjoying and it just stopped all of a sudden. No really, the song cuts off half way through the chrous and just skips to the next track. I checked on YouTube to see if maybe it was just the file I got that was corrupted…nope, the one on YouTube was like that too! See what I mean? No fucks given.

The entire album runs at a slugs pace, it never picks up to any level of energy or intensity. It makes Chief Keef’s lack of skill completely visable. I never thought he was a “good” rapper in the traditional sense of the term, but he had charisma and he was real and that was good enough for me. Now that all passion is gone, there’s no reason to listen. He rhymes whenever he feels like it, and when he does only about half of the words he uses actually rhyme. He uses the same flow almost the entire album, which makes the the similarities between everything even more glaring. All the songs sound the same which is depressing seeing as some songs are so half-baked that they don’t even reach two minutes long. Honestly, there’s nothing really more I can say. Everything is so samey on this album that this review risk getting the same way, if it hasn’t already.

I guess I should talk about some positive points now. The title track features a sample that I first heard on “Ra-Tat-Tat” on Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic”, so that brought back good memories I suppose. Keef also manages to sound somewhat interested in what he’s doing too. The last track “Yeah Now” has instrumention thats a little more polished, so even though Keef insisit on once again mumbling through the chorus, atleast it’s complimented well enough. Although even this track cuts off abruptly at the end.

Ok, i’m done now. If this review ended off sounding rushed towards the end, it’s because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I have to put in more effort to this review than he put into his entire album

2/10

Favourite Track: Nobody, Yeah Now