Chesstown King's Reviews and Thoughts

 I meant to review this album a long time ago, but never really got to it. This album won a grammy so you know its great. I like this album, but idk I don't love it as much as you'd think. I really enjoyed the Run the Jewels run Killer Mike & El-P were on in the 2010s. "Talk'n That Shit!" is a banger where Killer Mike attacks the beat. "Slummer" feat. Jagged Edge is s a smooth tale of love. The best song here is "Scientists & Engineers" which features Andre 3000, Future, & Eryn Allen Kane. The song is really soulful and smooth. There were some songs I wasn't feeling too much like the last song, "High & Holy". The African talking on that one just seems kinda odd to me.... "Motherless" was a very personal song for Mike.He raps about missing his mother and grandmother. Overall the lyricism is quite a bit better than the beats here, but the album is pretty well rounded. I do feel Killer Mike has been an under...

 People had a lot of hype for this album. For the most part it delivers ....It was interesting to see what Nas would talk about after 6 Albums in 3 years with Hit-Boy.  Nas has some pretty good concepts for this record that very much embraces the past. There's "Nasty Esco Nasir" where he raps from different perspectives of his career (Young, Middle, and Current). I like "My Story Your Story" where Nas and AZ spit some hot fire. "Boquet (To The Ladies)"is just that as Nas shouts out like every female MC there is. Some songs aren't so great like "NY State of Mind Pt. 3". It sounded like the new beat was just so inferior to the classic one.....That brings me to the fact these beats DJ Premier cooked up were good but not incredible. It's a shame really cause Nas was really spitting well on this. Overall tho it's a good album but I think it falls short of much of what Nas did with Hit-Boy. But yeah Nas shows no signs of slowing down......

16) Vultures 2 (72)- It should be no surprise this album is the worst of the bunch. It just comes off as lazy and uninspired most of the time. The production is decent tho. “Bomb” features Yuno Miles and his daughters: North and Chicago West…..and it's really corny. “Husband” is just god awful. I don’t know what he was going for with that one! “Fried” is pretty dope tho….and you can see the potential of “530”. 15) Donda 2 (75) - I haven’t had a lot of time to sit with this one. It’s not that bad tho…in fact it’s kind of average. I really like “City of God” which features Alicia Keys and Five Foreign. Sure lyrically its not great but the production again isn’t bad. Ultimately I feel like this has little to do with the first Donda album…. 14) 808s and Heartbreak (83) - You may be shocked to see this still near the bottom of his discography. While I bumped the score up a little from last time, I still feel 808’s isn’t all that. I love “Heartless” as it’s probably the best song. “Love...

 I meant to review this album way back in 2024. For some reason I always associated it with when I got it....I had Corona Virus when I copped this smh lol. It was awful. However I listened to the album a little bit since then. Dua does a great job here. Lead single "Houdini" is absolutely a banger! The beat is infectious and I love the chorus. "Training Season" features her in her element as well. "These Walls' is a pretty ok song but it seems kinda cookie cutter in my opinion. I really liked "Whatcha Doing" with its uptempo beat. "Illusion" was another hot song. Overall most of these songs are good, but the replay value (tilt) I didn't find to be the album's strong suit....maybe it's because this is what we got after the phenomenal Future Nostalgia (which I reviewed). Overall tho, great album miss Dua Lipa.  Lyrics 23 Beats 22 Depth 23 Tilt 21 Verdict 89

This was another Kanye album I wasn't too hype to listen to cause of its bad reputation. I am glad he put it on traditional music services.The album was available on this weird music player thing in 2022 at first. Kanye raps alot about his ex wife Kim Kardashian here. I know he did on Donda 1, but he does it a lot more here. The song "Get Lost" feels empty and is so boring. "Security" has a weird beat...I mean it's too weird for its own good.  I really like "Keep the Flowers", its got a nice beat to it.I liked "Too Easy" as well. "City of God" is arguably the best song....Alicia Keys does a great job, as does Five Foreign. A different version of "530" is here as well. I enjoyed "Pablo" too which features Future and Travis Scott. Ultimately its an average album....but it wasn't that bad overall. However it did fall woefully short of the first Donda 2 which was great. Lyrics 18 Beats 21 Depth 18 Tilt 18 Ver...

 I don’t listen to much Freddie Gibbs. But this album was so good I want to hear more from him. The Alchemist production was really smooth and fit Freddie’s flows well. Freddie is a gangster rapper and the bars were hardcore throughout the album. I really enjoyed "Mar-a-Lago" and "Lemon Pepper Steppers". Most of the features were pretty good too; like JID and Anderson .Paak. The last song "A Thousand Mountains" is really fire as Alchemist blesses us with a Japanese sounding beat. This album was really well balanced. But yeah this was certainly one of the better rap albums of 2025. I've got to hear the first Alfredo now.  Lyrics 23 Beats 23 Depth 23 Tilt 22 Verdict 91