LAX Review

He announces this as his last album, which turns out not to be true, and the announcement is the most focused idea on it. The read at the time is that the thing is bloated and uneven and that his skill alone keeps it upright, and that read still holds. The beats are the problem. After a debut assembled by the most expensive board in rap and a follow up that at least sounded rich, this one leans on producers who hand him competent radio and very little he can bite into.

Gentleman's Affair is chasing a format. Ya Heard is filler with a big guest stapled to it. What survives is the writing, which is sharper than the material deserves. Letter to the King is a real piece of work, patient and unshowy about a subject that invites neither. Never Can Say Goodbye is the swing, three verses delivered in the voices of three dead men, and it is either the bravest thing here or the most tasteless, which at least makes it worth arguing about.

My Life lands. Angel almost does. Nineteen tracks is about nine too many and the sequencing gives up around the halfway mark. He raps well throughout. Nobody built him anywhere to put it.