Tone Oliver and Tone Deafs

The Good:

Tone Oliver - Live and Let Die

I barely went into Tone Oliver a few weeks ago when I reviewed Mann's The Expansion Tape, a mixtape that I didn't like all that much. To make matters even crazier, Oliver is actually operating with Mann's #PeaceLife movement. And yet, despite working closely with a rapper I wasn't so hot on, Oliver manages to be quite good.

If you remember, my biggest gripe with Mann was his lyrics, or lack thereof. Mann had a pretty good mixtape in just about every other way, though. Especially in terms of production.

Oliver is a much better lyricist and raps over beats similar to those off The Expansion Tape. This makes Tone basically just a good version of Mann. But I'm not complaining.

As I mentioned, beats are very important to the likes of Oliver and Mann. Oliver shows this straight from the get-go. "Dream Last Night," the first non-intro song on Live and Let Die, is a soulful piano-backed song. As soon as the beat hits, so does Oliver, rapping, "I look in the mirror and see a miracle / As my mind travels to new worlds, Americo / There I go again on the the merry-go-round." Paired with Oliver's slick flow, these lyrics come to life.

The title track is another quality beat, sampling Red Hot Chili Pepper's "Under the Bridge." I don't know about you, but there's something about rap sampling the Peppers that just gets my heart racing ("Otherside" by Macklemore, anyone?), so I love this beat as soon as the guitar starts strumming. The song also features a fantastic verse from enimaL, as he spits clever lines like, "And they need their money like ASAP / So it's safe

RHCP make everything better.

to say I have a 'Fucking Problem.'"

Oliver can take on more than just a chill beat. "Drive" features some banging drums and "Fish Tank" gets rowdy towards the end.

Plus, the song "Love is Back" from Mann's mixtape is on Live and Let Die, too. While I don't like hearing a song on two different tapes, this song is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

Tone Oliver proves just how far working on lyrics can take you. Sure, beats are fun, but lyrics are ultimately what tie everything together.

The Bad:

Chris Brown - X Files

Okay, so this is only a six-track mixtape and I usually try to stick to full-lengths, but I just had to cover it. This is a big release and it deserves attention. Plus, how many times can I bust out some violent Chris Brown jokes? Hopefully they hit you in your funny bone.

What's black and read all over? The newspaper the morning after another Chris Brown attack!

buh-duh-chh

How many Chris Browns does it take to screw in a light bulb? None, because Chris Brown would prefer the room to be blacked out!

buh-duh-chh

Why does Chris Brown always leave early for meetings? So he can beat traffic!

buh-duh-chh

Thank you! Thank you! I'm here all week!

Now onto X Files. It's not very good. I guess you knew that at this point. Considering, you know, it's in the bad category.

The problem with X Files is that Chris Brown tries to sound like modern R&B (think Weeknd or Miguel), but waters it down with his pop charm.

C. Breezy looks kind of sinister with
Big Red behind him. Just saying.

Look no further than "Sweet Caroline." He takes pages straight out of The Weeknd's book. Like the falsetto as a climax of the song. Or the heavy vocal synthesizers for emphasis. But it still sounds like "Doublemint Gum," "Forever" Chris Brown. The Weeknd's sound works because it's dark all the way through. Chris Brown just can't pull that off. Luckily, Busta Rhymes comes in for a guest verse and makes the song somewhat tolerable, but it's still far from good.

"Waiting" has more of a Miguel feel, with the hot guitar licks and the overall rock-meets-R&B feel. But there's still that corny pop Chris Brown lurking underneath. And lyrics like, "Baby, look what you do to me / Girl, I've gone crazy / And you just got me waiting" don't help in the slightest.

There are a couple extra features from big names like Ludacris and Kid Ink, but the verses they provide just seem mailed in. Especially when Luda starts his verse with "I wanna li-li-li-lick you from your head to your toes." Sound familiar?

It has to be nice for Chris to know he's not the only one running out of material. At least he's not blatantly ripping bars from past verses. But X Files isn't too much above that.

Honestly, the best part is probably Kid Ink's verse on "Main Chick" when he raps, "KO shawty when I hit her with a punch...line." Whether that irony was intentional or not, I don't care. I still love it. Thank you, Kid Ink. Thank you so goddamn much.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Low Debiase - Boss Life City

One of my favorite things about Datpiff is that artists can provide their own description of their mixtape. Low Debiase doesn't do anything worse than any other rappers when it comes to descriptions, but I just felt like sharing it.

"It's finally HERE "Boss Life City" By Low DeBiase .Including Exclusive Boss Freestyles such as Bossed Up Hustla, Keep It G , Make A Flip Off The Rift & Many More"

Yes! It's finally here! I've been waiting forever for this mixtape named after a made up city! And there's even exclusive boss freestyles. I don't know how they're exclusive or even what they are, but I'm still so stoked for this! #BossLife

Maybe that's a little harsh on this little boss, but it doesn't seem so hard anymore once you start listening to the mixtape.

"Grinding" features a generic trap beat with a lot of hype rapping. Plus, Debiase proves he can spell by making a hook with only the letters of the song's title.

In fact, most of the songs follow this pattern. Low Debiase is just so generic. I've heard his flow hundreds of times. His beats, too. And don't get me started on all the "skurr"s. Even his topic seem like they're literally jacked from another rapper. Like the song "100," which is almost exactly like a song I covered last week.

Plus, these "exclusive boss freestyles" he promised aren't even exclusive. Or special. Or a sign of his never-ending love for me. They're exactly the same as the rest of his music. There's only one legitimate freestyle on the whole album and that only lasts a minute and a half (close to a minute after the intro) and is basically a shittier version of all his other songs.

You know what, Low Debiase? You're not a boss. You're not even an employee. You're just a big, fat phony!

-X-Prime, dropping the mic for now

@XavierVeccia

Kimye Day

Before I get started, I just want to say congratulations to Kanye West and Kim Kardashian on their recent engagement. Hopefully, the next time Kanye googles himself, he comes across this and knows that the hip-hop blog community loves him and wishes him luck. Or he just notices me. That'd be pretty awesome.

The Good:

Big Sant - The Great American Mattress Sale

Big Sant is a Mississippi rapper who definitely represents the Southern feel. I mean, his Facebook page says he's "0% bitch!" If that's not Southern rap, then I don't know what is.

The Great American Mattress Sale is noticeably different from a lot of the rap out there straight from the get-go. It has a handful of goofy skits that sound like commercials for, you guessed it, a mattress sale. This gives the mixtape a fun vibe to it.

If only Sant had an actual
gospel choir.

But this playful attitude follows into the songs. Sant has a lot of fun with the beats. There's some pretty big funk and gospel influences on here and Sant's not afraid to unleash a few freestyles.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of freestyles on mixtapes and albums. These should be treated as a platform for an artist's best work that they spent countless hours putting together. But Big Sant manages to put together some pretty good bars over some well-thought out beats.

"Numbers" is a freestyle that is actually one of Big Sant's best performance on the album. The fact that lines like "She looking for a trick / It ain't under my sleeve, darling" came off the top of his head just makes it more impressive. Plus, the beat is a banger thanks to its bass and creative use of percussion.

"Full Time Hustler" is one of his more Southern songs. The beat is composed of some funky bass slapping and a tambourine with a chorus sung by Sant himself. Plus, the idea of being a hustler is something that a Mississippi rapper almost has to embrace.

And if we're talking Mississippi rap, it's hard not to bring up names like Big K.R.I.T., David Banner and Tito Lopez. Luckily for the listener, all these soulful Southerners appear on one track, "Fire Water II."

This has to be the mixtape's stand out song. The beat, produced by David...David...David Banner, is one of those beats that needs to be blasted in a car going 15 in a 25, driver nodding his head and clutching the steering wheel with only one hand. And Sant, Lopez and K.R.I.T. all deliver in their performances. K.R.I.T. especially comes through. Even among other talents, K.R.I.T. still seems like a rap god with his freaky fast flow.

Big Sant puts together a really good mixtape with The Great American Mattress Sale that should put him into any conversation about modern Southern rap, and manages to have fun while doing it.

The Bad:

Mann - The Expansion Tape

The only thing that bothers me more than bad rap is bad rap that could be good with just a little extra effort. That's really just the best summary of The Expansion Tape that I can give, honestly.

Where The Expansion Tape falters is Mann's lyrics. He has an alright flow--a bit like Big Sean. But his rhymes just don't live up to the potential that his mixtape has.

Any semblance of potential comes from the beats that he gets for The Expansion Tape. Most mixtapes have one or two main producers with maybe a couple extra sprinkled into the mix. Mann decides to go a totally different route, managing to get some production from multiple sources and most of it is pretty good.

"Barbie Girl" meets rap on
"Hooked on Phonics."

"Hooked on Phonics" is produced by Laze & Royal. They give the track an early 2000s electronic pop feel thanks to a sample of a bubbly female vocalist. Paired with some hip-hop drums and synths, this sample becomes a legitimate beat. But Mann makes the song less listenable with his lyrics, where he rhymes words like "bull shit," "took it" and "crooked." His flow makes up for it a bit, but not enough to salvage the track.

"Rather Dream," produced by Sounds (dumb name for a good producer) is a slow jam that gets gradually more "bumping," as the kids say, thanks to some interesting toned-down synths. But once again, Mann stays with an overly simplistic rhyme scheme and it lowers the entertainment value yet again.

"Love is Back" is one of the more interesting beats I've heard as of late, sampling little kids singing and pairing it with a simple piano riff. Plus, tone Oliver shows up to provide a decent verse, especially compared to Mann. I'd even go so far to say that not even Mann could ruin this song.

With just a little extra effort on his lyrics, Mann could've made a good mixtape. He managed to get some borderline great production, but he's just not ready to live up to that same level. Mann's definitely worth keeping an eye on, because if he improves even a little, he could be extremely entertaining. But for now, he's still got some improving to do.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Young Sam - Wake & Bake

Look at this. The rapper. The title. The cover. Everything about this screams cliché stoner rap.

I originally had him as just bad. But I had to downgrade him. This shit stank!

Imagine being there for the conversation that led to his name.

"Hey dude, what should my name be?"

"It should probably reflect who you are as a person. Let's see, your name is Sam. You're still pretty young. You..."

"Wait. I got it! Young Sam!"

"Brilliant!"

Or what about the idea of this mixtape?

I'm not positive, but I think
Young Sam smokes this.

"Ok, now with this mixtape, I want to get across the idea that I smoke weed."

"How do you expect to do that?"

"I was thinking naming it after a common stoner phrase."

"Good idea, but what if it's not obvious enough?"

"Then the cover will show me smoking weed with a massive bag of dank to my side."

"You did it again, Sam!"

I'm exaggerating a bit, but after listening to Wake & Bake, I don't think I'm too far off.

Based on the comments on this mixtape, it's clear I have the same idea as a lot of people on the internet--he's Wiz without any hint of talent.

He definitely can't rhyme. In fact, the very first line of the mixtape on the title track freestyle (see why I don't usually like freestyles on albums?) goes, "Raised in the streets where those niggas talk weak / 911 can't save nobody." I mean if he had anything that remotely sounded like flow, he might be able to make that line work. But I'd be surprised if Young Sam had rhythm, let alone flow.

Sometimes, he'll try to make up for this with Auto-Tune, like on "Pornstar." But the Auto-Tune is so obvious and obnoxious that I wouldn't be surprised if he made this track on Fruity Loops. (Normally, I would put a picture of a pornstar in PG-13 attire to get some extra views from my pervert fans, but I'm in the library writing this and that's a little low even for me.)

Drake's crying after hearing Young
Sam's rendition of his track.

The worst thing about Wake & Bake is that he doesn't just stick to ruining his own amateur beats--he takes perfectly good songs and ruins them with what he calls rapping. Just check out "Wu Tang Forever" to see what I mean.

Stoner rap isn't my favorite subgenre by any means. In fact, I've gone on the record bashing the modern poster child for it. But it can be done well. Young Sam, though, does not do it justice by any definition of the word.

-X-Prime, dropping the mic for now.

@XavierVeccia