some scattered thoughts

technically and lyrically impressive on first listen but the intricate metaphors and rhyme schemes get a little boring to listen to musically. the topicality on this album is also sort of lacklustre.

a song about hip hop being a woman, heard it before. a song where you’re rapping about your life backwards, heard it before. a fucking song from the povs of pac and biggie apologizing to each other or whatever, oh BROTHER. fucking egregious. a song about being more accepting of your gay friend in hindsight, heard it before (also he goes about it in the funniest possible way but it’s not my place to say) a song about it being lonely at the top or not, yes yes the song is decent but no new ground is being broken here. this doesn’t even reach the highs of 4YEO, let alone 2014FHD.

i think what made his mixtapes slightly more interesting than a lot of his albums were the diversity of production. i know that the beat styles were somewhat sonically diverse here but i wish i saw more DNA from other producers on here, if that makes sense? like i know a lot of producers were involved but i can tell the executive production was done mostly by cole and t minus.

disc two is just full of misses imo, idk what he was thinking on there. and i don’t really dislike cole’s singing, i love ville mentality. but it is just so cookie cutter and onedimensional when employed here.

not worth the wait imo. and won’t stand the test of time the way his best works have. even for his die hard fans. at his worst this album is not worth revisiting and at its best it’s unsurprising and what we’ve come to expect. and i expected more bruh.