"Start making decent music, RIOT". This is a dull EP that lacks creativity and that completely comes and goes. The longest song isn't even 3 minutes long and they still get boring. And just like I will be lenient with a double album that has some poor moments, if you are only giving me 13 minutes of music, it better all be incredible. I love how you can't dislike any record a female rapper makes these days without being called 'misogynistic'. What a time to be alive!
Best Tracks: Princess Diana
I've rated Marvaless's previous two albums fairly highly with her debut not far from a 4/5 but she goes missing on this album at times with lots of featuring artists and the production doesn't bang as much.
Best Tracks: Eyez on the Prize, Deadly Weapon, Bonnie & Clyde
[Spoilers] For the most part this was okay and offered a couple of laughs and dramatic moments about a family dealing with a suicidal son/brother, a divorce and other family issues, but the characters weren't written well and the ending left a bad taste in my mouth which made it lose half a star. Lori is one of the most annoying characters put to film and I don't know why anyone would want to spend 5 minutes with her. She has a new method for determining who is the father of her child after she screws around and cheats on her partner-Think about who the fetus is acting like inside the womb... Matt has a poor personality and definitely didn't need to be a father. Jessica is intruding, rude and unstable to say the least. The mum, Marion, is a cartoon character. It didn't feel real enough in parts.
From the jump, this has a softer, more g-funk, vibey oriented sound that their debut. It kicks off with 'Strikin''. The verses are enjoyable but I don't like the slow drawn out hook with the following title track feeling similar. 'Da Mack Shit', produced by Paris, is the first song to catch my attention and then the next Paris song, 'TCD Fo' Life (West Coast Bomb)', is also hard as nails. The rappers sound better over these bangers than the softer tunes, often produced by producers other than Paris, who only handles 7 of these 14 songs.
Beats: ★★★
Rapping/Bars: ★★★
Hooks: ★★☆
Best Tracks: Da Mack Shit, TCD Fo' Life (West Coast Bomb), Widow
Produced by Ant Banks, who Poohman would beef with further down the track, the beats are basically what you'd expect from a 1990 album but perhaps feel like they could've come from slightly earlier. The first song has a similar hook to Jeru Damaja's 'Da Bitches' and tells different tales about bitches, but like Pac though, he clarifies that not all women are bitches. The following song follows the same structure with some stories for each verse but the hook here sounds really amateur. 'Explicit Lyrics' talks about the issues around people blaming rappers for their behaviour. There is a nice production change-up towards the end of the song. 'Don't Fuck With Me' features Scarface soundbites.
Poohman raps well and has some content that became common themes in hop hop but the production doesn't do enough for me to rank this any higher.
Best Tracks: Explicit Lyrics, Oakland