Lyrics & Delivery: 3.1
Production: 3.7
Overall Score: 3.4/5.0
Review by MrReesh - We're all aliens, really - @MrReesh
 |
| He's on a horse |
So JB is back - not
that JB - Joey Bada$$, creator of
one of the highest scored mixtapes on thisblog to date, and even now I question whether that score was too low.
But alas your eyes meander upwards to the
Summer Knights
score, then back to what I just said, then back to the score like some type of impromptu Old Spice advert. Truth is
Summer
Knights is very sadly,
just good.
And this just goodness
is apparent from the start of Summer Knights, as you can tell
something here so RIGHT but is a little off. You can tell everything
has that signature Joey Bad touch to it, but it's weird, as though he
touched it wearing a funky smelling glove.
One of the main issues
I had with the mixtape are the lyrics and lyrical content. I mean he
has some moments of brilliance that only Joey Bad could do "I
don't drink too much, I know to bud wiser" but these feel
like things that make your ears perk up amidst a see of mediocrity,
and fails to command attention solidly. This is compounded with
similarly dull flows in places, or needlessly excessive flow in
others. For example Satellite ends up being one of the most
boring tracks on the mixtape thanks to a flow dryer than a house in
the desert with no cocoa butter despite decent wordplay, whereas
Joey's need to fit a thousand rhyming words into four lines in the
second half of My Youth leaves you just wondering why, as
there was no need, and just feels like overkill in a bad way.
Even subject matters
feel standard here; there are very few particularly interesting
perspectives here and some of them are just strange. Maybe it's
because I'm English, but “swank” the main contender (apparently)
to the word “swag”, sounds far too much like wank, and as wank is
English for a
knuckleshuffle the song is just a lol-factory
for me. This is especially true where Joey says "Swanking
swanking swanking - I see you Jigga!". But even that aside, if
you were to listen to songs like Right On Time, a good song by any
means,and compare it with the perspective Joey had on Pennyroyal, the
difference is frightening. And thus a majority of the songs here lack
the ability to impact your memory - it feels like basic, archetype
rap about how 'the team is untouchable', how places are dangerous,
and other topics covered under 'etcetera'.
Saying that, it's not
all average. Towards the end of the mixtape things start to get
consistently better, with the Saul Williams inspired Amethyst
Rockstars leading the way with great production and fiery flows
delivered by both Joey and Pro Era rapper/producer Kirk Knight.
LongLiveSteelo is as heartfelt as it should be, with enjoyable
storytelling and quoteables. Word Is Bond another song which lifts
the quality of the mixtape alongside Sorry Bonita, and the DJ Premier
produced Unorthodox which was released a while back now, forms a
great track to end the mixtape on with undeniably solid flows and
similarly as solid wordplay.
But what's the final
verdict? It's good as far as mixtapes go but honestly poor as far as
you'd expect a fresh Joey Bada$$ mixtape to be. Jay-Z said it the
best “n*ggas want my old shit, buy my old album” and you may just
be right to download 1999 instead of this if you're looking for a
truly great and near perfect mixtape experience (mixperience?).
However it's decent, and songs like
LongLiveSteelo and
Amethyst
Rockstars as well as a few others do make it worth the free download.
Unless you're actually
lobster who steals internet and has to be very selective about what
he downloads. Then maybe give it a miss. Maybe.
My Top 3:
1) Amethyst Rockstars
2) LongLiveSteelo
3) Unorthodox
Photo credits:
Original Lobster picture
"Lobster" by
John Stracke
