Musical Musings

You know, in some ways, I feel sorry for Game. Here we have a rapper who started so strongly with a great debut album in The Documentary which went on to sell over 5 million copies and has been sliding downhill ever since, tipped off by a high profile and seemingly never-ending feud with 50 Cent and G-Unit. He has never been able to match his previous success with each album he’s released and not for lack of trying. To me, 50 Cent is the rapper who got rich and stopped trying, Game is the antithesis. He has tried so hard over the years and two more LPs but he has never been able to reach the stardom and status as a rapper he feels he deserves.

That’s what makes listening to the R.E.D. Album so difficult. It’s almost as if studio executives have no faith in Game’s ability to sell albums by himself so they set him up with feature after feature. That is the only reason I can envision as to why this album is so incredibly jam packed with R&B singers on the choruses and other rappers to back Game up with guest verses. On the entire 21 track album, Game is only alone on five songs. As much as Game seems to idolize Dr. Dre, one of the prototypical Compton-based West Coast rappers, the only tracks seems to have any involvement in are mere interludes.

The disappointment in this review echoes the disappointment I feel from the album. The Boyz n the Hood sampling Ricky is a standout track that showcases Game’s ability to tell a story and the Big Boi and E-40 featuring Speakers on Blast is a catchy and upbeat song that also shows off Game’s ability to adapt his voice and delivery style to make him sound like a completely different rapper. He can also be surprisingly affectionate, in the songs California Dream and Mama Knows, expressing his love for his Mother, wife and infant daughter. The album is a collage of so many different feelings and tones that going from track to track is surprisingly jarring.

Game is one of the hungriest and most expressive rappers I’ve heard in my many years of listening to Hip-Hop. He’s aggressive, in your face, and completely unashamed about it. He wants more, he wants to be better and what’s almost sad is that you can hear how disappointed he is that he’s not there yet.

Make no mistake; this is Game as you’ve heard him before. Nothing much has changed from years ago. He still drops names like he’s thumbing through a celebrity phone book (which Tyler the Creator amusingly points out in his verse on Martians vs. Goblins) but not as often. He’s still lyrically competent, he still wants you to know that he’s straight outta Compton, so to speak and he’s still backed up by a solid selection of beats. If you like Game, you’ll probably like this album. It’s unfocused and unpolished, but it gets the job done. I guess that’s part of the problem I have because, as long as this album has been in the cooker, it seems like it should’ve been better. Perhaps the music industry needs to take Game as seriously as he takes himself so he can truly shine.

Favorite Tracks - Speakers on Blast, Ricky, Born in the Trap, California Dream, Mama Knows

After numerous delays, endless speculation and rumors that the album was going to be shelved entirely, Lupe Fiasco’s latest, Lasers, is finally here. Expectations have reached a fevered pitch in recent weeks leading up to the album’s eventual release. Now that it is finally available for fans to buy and listen to, has Lasers been worth the wait? Read on to find out.

This is, by far, the most mainstream sounding of all of Lupe Fiasco’s albums and is likely to be the most accessible by those who aren’t hip-hop fans because of it. Fortunately for the fans, the album still features a good amount of Lupe’s particular brand of socio-politically charged rap but it is too often broken up by songs that sound annoyingly mainstream with their catchy ringtone-ready hooks and bubblegum pop-esque beats. Going from a song like Words I Never Said, a scathing political rant to I Don’t Wanna Care Right Now is jarring and hurts the album’s cohesion. While I like that features a number of different styles, from the eclectic electronic/house sound of I Don’t Wanna Care Right Now to the punk rock aesthetic of State Run Radio but there seem to be too many of the pop beats that he seemed so opposed to dating back to The Cool.

On that note, State Run Radio is one of the most intriguing songs on the album in that it seems like Lupe is using it as a way of thumbing his nose at Atlantic and label politics in general. With lines such as “Different is never good, good is only what we pick, you ain’t got a hit unless it sounds like these did”, it becomes clear that he is not a fan of the business side of the music industry. It is on songs such as this that Lupe sounds his best, even if he does seem to lack focus. Songs like All Black Everything, on which he tells a story of an “all black” alternate reality where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is still among us and Eminem and 50 Cent have swapped ethnicities and Beautiful Lasers, on which he talks about his personal struggles in a somewhat angsty, but not unbearably so, fashion best demonstrate his ability and are genuinely enjoyable.

As I listen to this, I keep thinking that this isn’t the album Lupe actually wanted to make and this is not the Lasers that he envisioned. It seems as though Lupe was phoning this one in to appease studio executives and get out from under their collective thumb.

It’s a shame that this album was locked in development hell for so long and a bigger shame that Atlantic was apparently able to strong-arm Lupe into making so many songs that he clearly didn’t want to make. Lasers seems like it could have been better without such interference but, to that end, I can’t actually blame Lupe here. Rather, it seems the same label politics Lupe addresses in State Run Radio are to blame. The influence executives have over the artists they’ve signed and the ways in which they can and do limit creative expression is disconcerting but that’s a story for another day.

Lasers isn’t the album I was hoping for and given the caliber of rap that Lupe Fiasco has ably demonstrated that he is capable of, I feel as though this was a half-hearted effort, at best. Despite my criticisms, I can’t say that I dislike Lasers as an album but it’s definitely a step down from Lupe’s previous efforts. Lasers is a good album on its own merits but considering the amount of hype it had going for it, good just isn’t good enough.

Favorite tracks – All Black Everything, State Run Radio, Letting Go, Beautiful Lasers

It’s rare that I find myself listening to mainstream Hip-Hop. I tend to stray far from the type of tunes you regularly hear on the radio. Yet, when I saw that Rick Ross’ latest was actually getting good scores, I was intrigued. After all, I will listen to anything as long as it’s good and gets my foot tapping. Well, despite my preconceived notions, Teflon Don is one of those albums. I thought I’d hate this album. I thought I’d come away from my time with the album with absolutely nothing good to say about it. I thought wrong.

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Ever since early 2008 when I picked up a copy of The Cool, I’ve been a fan of just about everything Lupe has released. Being a fan, I am also highly anticipating the upcoming release of his third album, Lasers, which is scheduled to be released sometime this year (hopefully). In the meantime, Lupe has released a considerable amount of new material to promote the album such as the singles Shining Down an I’m Beamin’ but imagine my surprised when I stumbled across a new freestyle entitled B.M.F. (Building Minds Faster). As soon as I could, I downloaded the new track and gave it a listen. Sadly though, I was not impressed…

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