Trev Rich, Ace Hood & Bobo Norco

The Good:

Trev Rich - Heights 3

Hot damn was this a slow week. There were a couple major releases (if you even want to consider them major), but most of them were in the awkward zone between alright and bad. I actually had to search for Trev Rich's mixtape because nothing else did it for me.

But I'm glad I did find Rich's Heights 3, which, as the title makes obvious, is the third installment of his Heights series. I don't love Heights 3 but it's certainly a good listen.

The best part of Heights 3 is easily the production, headed by Brinky Beats. The wide range of beats on Heights 3 range from simplistic piano-based ballads to futuristic bass bumpers.

A solid example of the brilliant production on this mixtape is "Prayer," which also showcases one of the few features on the album in Leonna Harper. The piano-like synths and the bassy undertones show a Kanye West influence. This influence can especially be seen when Rich paraphrases Yeezy himself, rapping, "I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven / Then I woke up in this hell without a necklace."

There's also the incredibly complex "Go Get It" beat that uses insanely heavy synths and the occasional guitar to create the most hype-worthy beat on the album.

And while Rich is far from the best lyricist, he easily makes up for it in content.

50 ain't nothing but a P-I-M-P

"50 Told Me" might be the best song on the mixtape. Over a simple piano-based beat, Rich goes against the norm and paints pimping as an evil profession. Feminism aside, pimping is usually revered in the hip-hop community (see: Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent). However, Rich looks at it from all sides, as he highlights, "Either
you're pimping or you're getting pimped."

Overall, Rich does just enough to make him stand out from the rest of the hip-hop community without doing so much as to propel him to the next level. This makes Heights 3 an entertaining listen, but doesn't make it as memorable as it could be.

The Bad:

Ace Hood - Starvation 3

If I had to be honest, I loved "Bugatti." Easily one of my favorite party tracks in 2013. The only thing more surprising than Future's damn catchy hook was the fact that it belonged to Ace Hood.

I kind of forgot about Ace Hood up until that point. I mean, the last time I really listened to an Ace Hood song pre-"Bugatti" was "Top of the World," but that's just because it was in an NBA 2K game. But that game also featured LeBron James in a Cavs jersey, so that should give you an idea of just how long ago that was.

But now, with "Bugatti" in the books, I guess Ace Hood is once again relevant. After Starvation 3, though, I'd be surprised if that lasted much longer.

Khaled's just sad he's not the best anymore

Ace Hood just feels so old now. I mean, he's signed to Cash Money and DJ Khaled's We The Best labels. If that doesn't scream late aughties, I don't know what else could. He's just a holdover from the last generation of hip-hop. And he wasn't even that successful then!

I mean, listen to "Everyday." The Auto-Tune-heavy "banger" sounds like it could have easily been a T-Pain beat.

Hell, "Home Invasion" was even produced by Cool & Dre. The former hotshot producers produced only four--count 'em, four--commercially released songs in 2013. I mean, don't get me wrong, I used to love the duo. But there's a reason for their drop in production.

The song starts off nice, sounding like a Barry White track. And then it all of a sudden shifts into a hood beat that sounds like just about everything else Ace Hood does. No wonder Cool & Dre aren't around anymore.

I mean, there are a couple of decent songs. "Hip-hop" gets a soulful sample to make it interesting and "Buss Guns" gets a good sample from Mavado to give it a heavy reggae feel. But at the end of the day, Ace Hood's just stuck in the past. Which leads to this question for Ace Hood:

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Bobo Norco - Keep It Up

Oh. My. God. I forgot how much I loved writing this part of Stack That Cheese over the past month. But thanks to Bobo Norco, I can love again!

Everything about Bobo Norco feels like it's fake. His Auto-Tune-heavy, bubbly techno sound brings back memories of nineties boy bands. His album cover makes him look like a Macy's mannequin trying to appeal to the "urban youth." Even his name, Bobo Norco, sounds like an Italian clown. I honestly love it. I can't stop typing it. Bobo Norco. It's so great!

Now, let's give a listen to the Backstreet Boys reject's mixtape, Keep It XO, a mixtape described as "visually stunning."

If you look closely, you can see Bobo in the back.

The Bay area "rapper" is definitely on the poppy side of hip-hop. But I'd hardly associate Kevin Federline Jr. with the genre.

K-Fed is proud of his
illegitimate son

"NLNF" is a good example of this confusion in Bobo's head. See, he seems to think just because he's not singing 100% of the time (it's more like 49%) that he's rap. He sprinkles in some typical rap topics like expensive clothes, guns and women, but it comes off as more hearsay than experience. Hell, the featured rapper (who's not mentioned) raps circles around Bobo and he sucks in his own way. It's not a hard task, though, when Bobo has a rhyme scheme of twelve-twelve-shells-twelve-shells.

"NLNF," by the way, is an acronym for No Lovers, No Friends which will be the name of his debut album out on March 3, which I will happily wait the next month and a half for.

And every song sounds like "NLNF" to a horribly scary degree. I mean, there's "You," which includes Bobo doing a disgusting Pharrell impression. Or "Funk Sweat Dope" where Bobo moves from 'N Sync to Black Eyed Peas, so that's improvement, I guess? But you'd be hard-pressed to find a good track on Keep It XO. That being said, I loved Keep It XO and I cannot wait for his album in March. Bring on the re-dic-yu-lus!

Season Finale

It feels like just yesterday when I emailed my blogs editor about a mixtape review-based blog. Not long after, I followed through with it. It was rough at first. Hell, it still is rough sometimes. But I slowly started building a blog-writing formula that I have stuck with week after week (for the most part). And I've honestly really enjoyed it. But with the school year coming to an end, so must this blog. But come August, Stack That Cheese will be back and better than ever.

The Good:

King Los - Becoming King

Los was a Baltimore rapper who gained a pretty decent following due to his quick delivery and wordplay. But Los is no more. He goes from Los to King Los in a matter of minutes on the title track of Becoming King.

He begins with just talking about his goals, saying, "If I can do one thing in the world, it would be to inspire just one person" as the beat filled with cymbals and electric guitar builds and builds. As he reaches the conclusion, he begins his rap. And right away, the listener just knows he witnessed a transformation from a rapper to a king.

From there on out, King Los just rides that momentum to put together a fantastic mixtape.

While the king could certainly do that on his own, he brings along company to prove just how royal he truly is. With features from some of the biggest names in rap, from Diddy to Wiz Khalifa to Ludacris, it's clear this king has quite the court.

"Disappointed" is the song that features both Diddy and Ludacris. While Diddy's just there for the chorus, Ludacris is there to spit a great verse. One of his best lines is, "I can get a little cocky / Pulling off in my Kawasaki / Thousand dollar bottles of Saki / Taking shots to the head like Rocky." But, just like a true king, Los doesn't get outdone by his guests. His flow is crisp and his lines are empowering, making him stand out the most. "I move different and breathe different / Niggas cut me, I fuck around and bleed different," he says.

Another quality song is "Dope," featuring Pusha T and Yo Gotti. Yet again, the featured artists go all out, showing just how much respect they have for Los. Pusha delivers one of the best verses of any featured artist on Becoming King, saying, "King Los with the king pin / King Push about to king him / King's ransom for a kilo / Took mine and built a kingdom."

But King Los can also put together a great song by himself. "Hard Life" is one of those songs. He does the chorus himself, thanks to a little help from Auto-Tune. But it doesn't seem overdone when Los does it. And his second verse is so ridiculously good it's unbelievable. He comes in hard and quick and continues this pace throughout the verse. It's no wonder he's wearing the crown.

And the production on Becoming King is good, too. But the great thing about it is that it just seems to compliment Los. The listener can't be drawn into the production because he's so busy being drawn into Los.

Becoming King is quite ambitious, actually. Not only has Los taken on a new persona, but he's changed his being. He really is a king now. Los wasn't getting noticed enough, but thanks to Becoming King, it's all but certain King Los will be.

The Bad:

Future & FreeBand Gang - Black Woodstock

I'm not going to lie. I've gone pretty hard to some songs featuring Future. Everytime "Bugatti" by Ace Hood or "Love Me" by Lil Wayne comes on at a house party, I can't control myself. I may start shouting, "I woke up in a new Bugatti." And once I start, I can't stop.

"Hello my baby, hello my
honey, hello my ragtime bitch."

But every time I find myself in this situation, as I'm going HAM as hell, I can't help thinking, "How the hell is this dude famous?" Like, seriously, how is this dude famous? I don't get it. Maybe if he was a rapper and purely a rapper, I could get it. But he's not. That's not his call to fame. He's a singer. But in order to be a singer, don't you need to have a good voice? Apparently not, because Future sounds like a drunk frog and he still manages to do it.

I wish I could say that's harsh, but it's really not. It's the truth. Take the song "Keys" for example. He sings the chorus and he sounds horrible. Like if there was a ghetto karaoke bar, he would be performing there. But that doesn't stop Future. He just shouts out, "I know keeeeys" like it's nothing.

And then he raps the verses, but he's incomprehensible in those. I try to understand him, but I can't. I saw a comment on the album from some random Hot New Hip-Hop member saying that Future sounds like he stole Mike Jones' flow. And I can't help but notice how true that is. But why would you do that? Mike Jones' biggest song is "Who is Mike Jones?" Even Mike Jones thinks he's irrelevant.

This theme continues throughout the whole mixtape. "Take This 4 Granted" is another good example. Once again, Future sings the chorus, but this time, it's even less clear than before. He continues his singing into the verse, but it's still not clear. If you're going to release music, shouldn't it at least be possible to understand you?

But this mixtape also belongs to his crew, who apparently goes by the name "FreeBand Gang." And it's just a collection of people who are even worse than Future. The song "Blow Them Bands" is a song by Stuey Rock featuring Future. I was hoping for this to be good because most songs featuring Future manage to at least get the listener pumped up. But the beat here is just cheesy and Stuey Rock is intolerable. He sounds like a mix between a bad hair band singer and a 14-year-old who just discovered how to use Auto-Tune.

There's also a rapper on Black Woodstock that goes by the name of Casino. He might be one of the better members of the FreeBand Gang, but his flow is basically just him shouting into the microphone. Try listening to three minutes of that.

I don't think I'll ever get the hype behind Future, especially after Black Woodstock.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Soulja Boy - Foreign 2

What better way to end Stack That Cheese's year than with Soulja Boy? Answer: probably a lot of things. But Soulja will do.

Soulja Boy's been on Stack That Cheese before, but I spent most of the time talking about his olden days of "Crank That." Now I actually have to listen to it and just make fun of current Soulja Boy. Ugh. 

Soulja Boy's kind of like the human version of Lil B. He shouts out random sylables ("Wah!"), he makes horrible metaphors and he's just laughable. The only difference is that there is no suspicion that he's just joking around. He's completely serious. Which might make him even funnier.

Cake and a pussy. It's Soulja Boy's dream.

Take the song "Yea Yea." I don't even understand where he's trying to go with it. Over a repetitive beat, he just shouts out lines like "SBZ, I should be on the Lakers." At one point he just says, "Cake cake cake / I want that cake, cake, cake." Wait, what?

"Soulja Walk" is another fun song. The beat is better now, with some nice bass and synths that actually make it somewhat tolerable. Until Soulja starts rapping, that is. The chorus just consists of "Walk, walk, walk / Soulja walk, walk, walk" and it goes about 30 seconds too long. And his lines are just plain stupid, like "Shawty right here / All on my pants / Shawty right here / Go and do your dance." And this is all while shouting every one else's catchphrases, like "swerve," "swag" and "turn up."

There is a song featuring Sean Kingston, so that's cool, I guess? If you weren't excited for the "Crank That" nostalgia, then you should be about that "Beautiful Girls" swag. And this song, entitled "Everybody Hoe," is just up there with the sweet songs of Kingston's past, as he sings "That's not your girlfriend / That's everybody hoe." Aww, how sweet, Sean. The best part about Kingston being involved is that it gives the listener a break from Soulja Boy.

This Soulja Boy mixtape was a lot less fun than the last one. I think the further I get in years from "Crank That," the more I hate it. I can't believe I used to like, nay, love that song. I guess we all have regrets. For some, it's that embarrassing bowl cut. For me, it's Soulja Boy. Yah, trick, yah.

-X-Prime, dropping the mic for now

@xprime_time