Today reviewing one of my favourite contemporary rappers Big Sean. Been a while since we've heard anything from Sean, I enjoyed both his 2017 efforts I Decided and his collaborative tape with Metro Boomin Double or Nothing.
Straight out the gate, Sean comes in with the both smooth and high-tempo banger Why would I stop. Immediately he sounded crisp and confident and somewhat with something to prove. He's constantly switching up his flow (something he does throughout the full album), for example I like the flow at the end for the closing bars of the song, "I never listen to what the odds say, Why? When the universe respond to what I say." Plus, the bar "the house that I built, house in the hills ain't no hills in the D so we out in the field" was fire, and a good way of introducing the biggest theme of this album, Detroit.
Lucky Me was really cool, that first instrumental is not something I would expect to hear Sean on, but the way he talks through and discusses lucky things that have happened to him, and more ironically the unlucky things that have happened to him, for example getting a heart condition at a very young age. For me the song really picks up on the beat switch, his flow here is incredible, and already (2 songs in) I was thinking this might just be the best I've heard Sean rap. He raps with confidence, tempo, nice swag to his bars and like I said, a fast, filthy flow that I have never associated with Sean up to this point.
One thing that is evident from this album is Sean has matured greatly. There was no corny punchlines that you sometimes get with Sean, his wordplay was clever, but more importantly, his subject matter was mature. It was diverse, introspective and reflective. An example of this is Deep Reverence featuring the late Nipsey Hussle. On this track Sean discusses how he reached out to Kendrick Lamar to settle their "beef". That is good to hear, as they are both good rappers of the same generation and do not need to have any animosity that isn't necessary.
Wolves was a good banger with the strongest hook on the album, I thought Post Malone featured perfectly too. It is no surprise to see this track leading the way in streams and it wouldn't surprise me if this got a lot of radio play going forward. The trap instrumental was slightly generic in my opinion with not a great deal going on, but that is my only criticism really.
Body Language, yeah this was the one for me. This was the first track that I really fell in love with. Body Language is a smooth slow-jam with perfect catchy vocals performed by Ty Dolla $ign, Jhene Aiko and Sean himself, over a full layered beat.
The skits from Dave Chappelle, Erykah Badu and Stevie Wonder were nice to hear but they dd get boring on repeated listen. I particularly enjoyed the story by Dave Chappelle though, plus it was a good way to tie Danny Brown into the album because a lot of people felt he was left out of Friday Night Cypher.
Everything You Need contained nice, good easy singing and had Sean real off these realisations that he has had recently, and there seems to be a lot of truth in them from his perspective.
Earlier I mentioned the quality of Big Sean's bars improving from the last album to this one, and this is evident on the track ZTFO (zen the fuck out). Although this wasn't a song I cared for too much, not really sure why it got its own music video, but this bar on it was so hard and one of my favourite bars on the album, "if we don't have the same vision then we can't exchange contacts".
Guard Your Heart featuring Anderson .Paak, Wale and Early Mac appears to be a fan favourite too with good performances across the board from all artists on the track. This track isn't necessarily what I go to Big Sean's music for, but it's good to see him trying new stuff, it was also very interesting to hear Sean's various "conflictions", such as being mates with Drake and Pusha T (despite their feud) and repping a city that he barely even stays in. Although this wordplay has been done quite a lot of times, I did still rate it the way Sean pulled it off when he said "got me mourning (morning) while it's dark"
Respect It was one of my favourite Young Thug features I've heard. Sean always sounds confident but on this song he takes it to a new level, yeah this track is a heavy banger.
Lithuania is a decent song on its own, but other than having Travis Scott on, I'm really not sure what this song does for the album. So yeah, although I think the song is okay, I could do without it on the LP.
Time In featuring Jhene Aiko, so forming the RnB group of Sean and Jhene, Twenty88, was my least favourite track on the album. The singing on here was pretty terrible, wasn't smooth which is what I'd expect from this song. It was a disappointment because I really liked the Twenty88 track on I Decided 'Same Time Pt.1'. That same chemistry just wasn't there this time.
FEED was a bit of a forgettable track and felt like a bit of a throwaway. I didn't really like the whole "yoko no" rhyme scheme at the end, it was only a couple of bars and it already felt played-out and tired. This song felt a bit obnoxious and overly self-indulgent, take the closing skit of the song for example.
The Baddest was good and I did not expect to Sean to rap on a beat like this. Apparently this was like an ode to some old school Detroit stuff which is sick. However, it was giving me some Pharoahe Monch Simon Says vibes, except no-where near as good. Infact I think that probably is a sample of that track. The Baddest closed my least favourite leg of this album, that being from Lithuania through to The Baddest.
The closing leg of the album does pick up though, especially with my second favourite song from the album Don Life featuring Lil Wayne. Great song and great performances from both Sean and Weezy. On the line when it says "getting to the paper like it's human nature" there was moments when that line is said and I was like eh that sounds like Meek Mill, and I looked it up and it actually was Meek Mill loool, he's not listed as a feature however.
Still I rise was a cool closer, however, I wanted to quickly just give my opinion on Friday Night Cypher. I think the track is cool, it's a fun track, it's cool that it even happened to be honest, all these different Detoit MC's on one track together. This is my order of the verses from best to worst, I think if you listen to the verses you got to be saying similar, there's a couple changes you could make but in general I think I'm pretty much on the money with it:
Best to Worst
Eminem
Big Sean
Royce Da 5'9
Cash Doll
42 Dugg
Payroll
Tee Grizzley
Sada Baby
Drego
Boldy James
To conclude, it was great to hear Big Sean step up his pen game, vary and come with hard flows, mature his content and rap on a wider range of beats. He has addressed many of the criticisms he has faced thus far in his career, for example, 'beats not diverse enough, 'corny bars' and 'can only make 1 type of song'. I'm not sure if this is my favourite Big Sean project yet, because I Decided still holds a place in my heart, but I can definitely say it is Seans most well-rounded album to date. Great work from one of my favourite MC's in the game.
Star Track - Body Language
8/10
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