![]() With less time to write than usual, his bars come out more varied and imaginative than ever, from the clever wordplay on PRECIOUS THINGS ("Give scissors to my paper, we not on the same page / We was bat, catcher, and pitcher, now you don't even wave," he sneers) to the devastatingly dark closer ON FAUX NEM where he contends with drill and rap culture - how he wishes that all the stories of murder and revenge in rapper's lyrics were all lies - and how the music industry and commercialized art play into those destructive cycles, DRILL MUSIC IN ZION not only a personal rumination on things for Fiasco but a larger crash course in how artists and their fans interact with one another. The good majority of the songs here manage to be just as strong and memorable, too, whether it's in the murky groove of GHOTI and its smoky woodwinds or SEATTLE's downtempo beat and driving electric guitar melody, Fiasco not worried about doing anything but making strong and powerful songs that are tons of fun to listen to. The beats are still driven by either chunky boom bap samples or oil-slicked trap drum programming, but he flows on it so confidently that it's in a whole different league compared to what he was doing in the past, coming out swinging with lead single AUTOBOTO, its stereo-shaking bass and elegantly placed guitar and synth one wild and exciting way to kick the album's release off. Produced by himself and longtime collaborator Soundtrakk, DRILL MUSIC IN ZION stays within Fiasco's comfort zone while giving just enough definition to it all for the album to bring a whole new energy entirely. It's Fiasco at his most urgent and engaged, and that's always what's made his music shine brightest. The resulting album is one of his best in years, a quick and memorable collection of bouncy, jazz-tinged boom bap and trap where his focus on reflection and clarity allows him to be more charismatic and powerful as a rapper than he has been in a long time. Whatever his reasons were for trying something more fast and fluid, DRILL MUSIC IN ZION benefits immensely from it, refusing to let Fiasco fall into the same traps of his past releases and forcing him to get his ideas out quicker than ever before. Over the years, Fiasco's music took a significant turn towards the sanctimonious and haughty, grand and weighty album concepts held back by half-baked production and underwhelming lyricism that caused albums like Lasers and Food & Liquor 2 to somehow be both overstuffed and uninteresting. Born from a failed challenge to record an album in 24 hours, the fact that Lupe Fiasco made DRILL MUSIC IN ZION in just three days is still a massive achievement. ![]()
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