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| tracklisting |
| 1. Intro |
| 2. Regardless |
| 3. Throw Back |
| 4. What I Know |
| 5. I Promise |
| 6. Call Me Never |
| 7. Hip Hop |
| 8. Gangsta feat. Cutty Mack |
| 9. T.O.D.A.Y. feat. Ingrid Smalls |
| 10. I & Me |
| 11. Beef |
| 12. Bomb 1st |
| 13. Everybody Goes |
| 14. Death Is Certain Pt. 2 (It Hurts) |
| 15. Something's Wrong With Him feat. 6 July |
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| Royce proofs to be a rare man in rap: he can face all these obstacles and still succeed. Just consider what all piled up to the uphill battle he had to fight: He disappointed everyone's high expectations with the eventually (in the States) shelved "Rock City" album (to later
be released in a different form). He had to exchange dirty and public words with a longtime partner who's kinda the hottest artist out with the pull that comes with it. He had to wait, hustle, this and that and the other. And what does he do? He comes back with a 'bang', or a 'boom' to use the title
of one of his old songs. Because, and please forgive me to spoil the conclusion of this review, this record is actually good. Because Royce lives up to what "Build & Destroy", his 2003 mix tape, promised and what "Rock City" could, should have been. |
| There's a couple of things that really stand out. One thing is how clear Royce speaks. His flow and versing is slow on many songs, so on the true opener "Regardless". At the same time however he's really pronouncing
the words clearly. We can hypothesize about why that is, or if we just missed it prior to this record. But maybe he just had the time to further hone his skills. Because when you take "Regardless" again, Royce really sounds comfortable
as a speaker. Not necessarily comfortable in what he says, because this song really is the moment where he reminds us and him of all the struggles, opening with a quote from "Lose Yourself". That's definitely a hint that Royce is still more the cat on the street jumping into cyphers, than
the one performing on big stages, in big arenas. The beat by Carlos '6 July' Broady does the rest to make this song a really good one. |
| Much else of the album focuses around less personal and more inner city struggles. While he's able to make his violent threat appear more braggadocio than necessarily ignorant. Especially on "What I Know" where he's
weaving in quotes from several other people's songs, and where he continues what he opened on "Regardless", to speak his piece and to say what's to say. |
| Much else of the album centers around death being certain. The most haunted and real piece is "Death Is Certain Pt. 2 (It Hurts)". Here Royce says: "I can't kill nobody to get you back / nigga, that's something that time can't heal / while I'm saying my grace,
I be looking up at the sky / and telling god that he's making a mistake / you can't take away one brother and leave the rest of the clique / lord please, double check your list / and if you get to his name and there's a check beside it / death comes in threes: take me next". The impact of this
song is however minimized by the many other songs that offer the anti-thesis, like "Something's Wrong With Him" or "Gangsta". Here Royce threatens to impose the same hurts he feels on the title track, on someone else. The latter of the two mentioned might be more in
a braggadocios battling kind of way, but he still says that he's "more concerned with wealth, than he is with his health". Or your health, for that matter. |
| Up to this point he has already said enough to create more ruckus. And like Mos Def, Royce starts to define "Beef", and in many ways, he finds similar but also very different conclusions. The beat is definitely inspired
by the mentioned "What's Beef" track by Biggie, adding enough to do something new. As for the beats in general, there's the previously mentioned good "Regardless", the okay but kinda standard "Throw Back" and
the obligatory: 'man, if it wouldn't have used synthesizer sounds, it would be really dope', "I Promise". "Hip Hop" gets attention just for the fact that DJ Premier did the beat. Royce uses it to kick his definition of
hip hop, what in many ways is Royce's definition of his world: so he spits "rhythmic, league come on with it, I'm long winded / I will diss you, from long distances / you will not get the chance, like Chopper / Ness and Dylan, to disrespect, who you don't listen to". "T.O.D.A.Y."
uses one classic Isaac Hayes break, while we get interesting violin parts on "I & Me". And finally, "Something's Wrong With Him" does the dramatic cinematic style well, with live instrumentation. |
| As proud this album sounds, there's still a disappointed overtone. Royce is a strong person, but he sounds disillusioned with the world. There's many references to this as well, like on "Everybody Goes", where he uses
the word morbid, or on "Something's Wrong With Him", where he states that even his wife doesn't like the album for it being too dark. At the same time however, despite all the struggles, he doesn't wine about it. That's how men do it. |
| review: tadah |
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