Chesstown King's Reviews and Thoughts

Queen B has done it again with another stellar album. It starts out with Pray You Catch Me, a soft and slow song. It quickly gets hostile with Hold Up. Sorry is another great song featuring the “Sasha Fierce” side of Beyonce. 6 Inch is a great song featuring the Weekn’d. The last 3 songs are just awesome, one of them being Formation. Its an odd album for me to score. I loved the lyrics and singing and I also liked every song. Despite this it’s still not as good as her last album, albeit not far behind. She’s clearly on top of the contemporary R&B scene right now. Verdict: 9.7/10

AP is a really soulful singer, and he raps sometimes too. The entire album, for the most part, is very catchy. The production is a weak point, but even that is pretty solid. The album also features guest spots from Schoolboy Q, BJ the Chicago Kid, Rapsody, Talib Kweli, and The Game. This guy is really talented…he’s kind of like the new Nate Dogg…yeah I said it. Just watch. Its easy to see why this album is so critically acclaimed. Its so solid. The Verdict: I went back and forth on the final score, its a 9.3/10 for me...

Verdict: 8.2/10 Okay so Jay-z double album is actually very good. Perhaps I just have held Jigga to such crazy standards, or maybe this album is just in Blueprint 1’s shadow….well both of those are likely true. Like with Nas’s Street’s Disciple there is FILLER. The first disc, the GIFT part is probably the better disc. It’s got 03’ Bonnie & Clyde and Excuse Me Miss on it. Also there is a part 2 to Dr. Dre’s The Watcher song.   Disc 2, the CURSE, also has some bangers on it like Guns & Roses and U Don’t Know Remix. The album features really good production, but the lyrics are noticebally a couple steps down from Jay-z’s near flawless standards. They aren’t bad but you get the picture. There’s a huge guest list including Beyoncé, Scarface, Lenny Kravitz, MOP, Sean Paul, Big Boi, Twista, Faith Evans, and Dr. Dre. Overall it’s a decent album with depth issues, and a good Blueprint behind an excellent one, and before BP3, a great one…

Nas’s double album is actually a tad bit better than Jay-z’s but who’s comparing right? Like the Blueprint 2, Street’s Disciple has a LOT OF FILLER. However the lyrics are really good throughout. The 1 st disc is the more preachy, making a point Nas. It has some major highlights like Nazareth Savage, You Know My Style, and Just a Moment. Some songs are so boring tho they are skippable. The 2 nd disc has some serious bangers on it like the album title track, Bridging the Gap, Virgo, and The Makings of a Perfect Bitch. The production isn’t bad either.Overall it’s a good album, but it would be even better minus some filler here and there. Verdict: 8.2/10

The Verdict is.....a 8.9/10...I cant believe I forgot to blog about this lol Slim shady returns after a 5 year hiatus. Relapse is good, but it deserves most of the criticism it got. I’ll start with the bad. He raps like a serial killer too much. And it feels forced and out of place. The weak songs are kind of boring and there are similar,better songs on this album. This album has mostly good songs on it, like Insane, which is a good description, and BfB has some nasty disses towards Mariah Carey and her husband Nick Cannon. Hello is a fun up-tempo song. We Made You is a great song, full of fun metaphors. Underground is a maddening masterpiece. Déjà vu is great, but Beautiful is the best song, and kind of sets the bar for his next album. Overall I felt he was trying too hard to recreate the Slimshady LP, he partly succeeded but this album isn’t as creative as that one.

Big Punisher will forever go down as one of the most talented rappers ever. This album just has a lot going for it. It has one of my favorite songs Still Not A Player with Joe. The song is incredible…the other song I’m Not A Player isn’t bad either. Basically we have a bunch of gritty songs with Pun just lyrically destroying every track. Lyrically he commands a lot of attention. The weakest part of the album was the beats which are quite good, but not really comparable to Pun’s lyricism. Overall this album is really good, and I liked the skits too. The Verdict, I love the album, but its a little long...9.6/10

Verdict: 9.7/10 K Michelle returns with another stellar album. She’s quickly becoming a favorite R&B songstress of mine. Shes got a powerful voice, and she even raps on the intro here. There’s more of a guest list this time featuring Jason Derulo on one song and Trina and Yo Gotti on another. The production is better this time around, but it’s not quite as deep an album, and its really almost not noticeable. Check this one out!