After multiple singles, features and her time on Unpretty Rapstar, Jessi has finally graced us with an actual album. It consists of 5 songs featuring YOX on one track and Changmo on the other. The opening tack “Gucci” has a lot going on with the beat and at times it seems like the song isn’t progressing. The verses here are okay but maybe a beat break with a longer 3rd verse would make this song sound less cliche and repetitive but the beat isn’t bad by any means, it just has a lot going on at once.
The next track is “Boing”, the song may grow on me because I like the beat as well as the melody and groove but it doesn’t do much for me. Changmo could have benefited from less auto tune but it wasn’t so bad. He delivered with the lyrics as expected but I do wish it were longer. Jessi could have given us better verses here as she felt like the feature and not the standout rapper. Not a bad song but if it doesn’t grow on me, it may become a skippable track.
Things slow considerably down with the following track “My Walk” as Jessi mostly sings of her struggles to this point in her career. The piano here is really cool and a nice touch as it stands out throughout the track. The song features YOX (Year of the Ox) and these guys normally go hard but here they took a step back from hardcore verses to some smooth raps about their journey as well that fit the overall mood of the song. This is definitely a great and standout track overall. Jessi’s crooning towards the end of the songs during Lyricks’ verse was beautiful.
Jessi finally comes with some solid rapping and lyrics with the song “Spirit Animal”. I love the sudden change in the album mood as Spirit animal has an eerie feel to it regardless of the more upbeat and theatrical beat. Jessi has been pretty brash and confident on this album but this song has the best representation of that because she’s more blunt here. I love the lines “Tiny little girl but he voice heavy metal” and “Wait Me. plastic?/Hmm I’m fantastic/My momma says I’m pretty/Yo momma she a fan bitch”. The entire song Jessi is proving she has bars and accolades but those two stuck out he most because of the hilarity and accuracy.
Jessi goes back to singing on the track “Arrived”, with a slower tempo trap beat. The lyrics aren't as special compared to the previous songs but I love the melody and brash jessi again here. This is a track that’s great to bob your head to and not think so much about it even though it has some decent lyrics. This is definitely a slow drive track and it was the perfect song to end the album on. Heading into the album I was skeptical because this was it, this was going to be the first showing if Jessi could hang with the other popular rappers out now. I was hoping for less ballad songs and more hiphop track and we got both. The rapping here is solid even though I would prefer better lyrics on the first 2 tracks. Jessi and her producers played to her strengths here so there aren’t many flaws here. This album may not make my top 10 but it’s one of the best albums I’ve listened to this year. I give it a rating of 3.2/5
Garser Dismuke is a writer for Blerdsonline.com as well as Garserspoetry.com
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