“Don’t talk about the recession, sh!t’s depressin’,” was the latest jewel dropped by Jay-Z on the Internet. Maybe the newly married rap maesto has a point. Times are hard and while your favorite trapper’s, favorite rapper continues to “inspire” listeners with some vivid clarity; rehashed concepts and an unimpressive showing on the mic gives Jeezy’s fans reason to check their portfolio on his appropriately titled third offering, The Recession.
The business acumen of Young Jeezy has allowed the former crack-dealer, now rapper to call himself such big willie inspired nicknames like “Mr. 17.5” and “Donald Trump in a White Tee.” As fans download music and corporations and governments fight for what’s left of this small blue ball called Earth, Jeezy sticks to the script – hoping to swing for those platinum fences.
Sticking to those familiar talking points over a darker assembly of beats than usual, Jeezy’s gruff, slo-mo dope flow is applauded over DJ Squkey Clean’s “Welcome Back.” Even though throwing money in poor people’s faces is about as inspiring as being in a modern day slave camp, Jeezy transitions nicely into what the streets want to hear with “What They Want.” In an interesting throwback to “The Inspiration,” Jeezy Hamiliton gets “Amazin'” over a patented Drumma Boy track.
Even though Young Jeezy doesn’t work with superstar A-list producers like Timbaland orDr. Dre, the grunginess fits the Atlanta hometown hero more appropriately with names like Midnight Black, Shawty Redd and the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League. But not everything is good in the hood as the obnoxiously produced “Who Dat” suffers from no imagination from Mr. 17.5. “Hustlaz Ambition,” would be deemed “blasphemous filler” on an album not as passionate as the late Tupac Shakur’s was.
But that doesn’t mean it’s all scales, pies to flip and gunshots. Jeezy manages to give his version of wordplay on the track, but what else, “Word Play.” The trapper turned rapper goes in over this J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League track as he manages to cleverly flip drug references better than his comrade-in-the-drug-trade, Rick Ross. The apex of The Recession comes in two forms though. The rep-your-city anthem “Put On” and the current event laden “My President.”
It seems like you cannot go wrong when Kanye West is on your side and Drumma Boy is spot on when the two pair up again (Jeezy appeared on a remix to Ye’s “Can’t Tell Me Nothin.”) Clearly one of the best songs of the summer (and 2008, probably…), Jeezy and Yeezy murder this track and you’ll be hearing remixes of it for the next month or so.
On “My President” (Is Black), Atlanta’s favorite son links up with God’s son, Nasir Jones, to wax poetic on this politically laced track. Though an interesting collaboration, the sequencing of this track doesn’t give fans or listeners too much to go on.
All in all, The Recession is just that – a slew of tracks that go on forever and manages to not follow along with the artist’s thoughts (we’re in a recession, yet you can still go around and sell drugs and pimp women?). Sure, this is just entertainment and The Urban Daily doesn’t take the musings of Jeezy to heart, but if this was paint-by-numbers, The Recession clearly is coloring outside of the lines.
<p>Facebook Live Is Loading....</p>