Back quickly again today reviewing my favourite MC from the UK and one of the most accomplished MC's in the game, Chip.
6 Minute Read
The only other time I think we have spoken about Chip on here was last year with his collaborative effort "Insomnia" with Skepta and Young Adz. Although that wasn't my favourite album of all time, I went away from it knowing Chip could still rap his ass off, and all in all, he slightly carried that project. With that said, despite not hearing any of the singles going in to this project, I still had some decent expectations and was keen to see what he was spitting. I did actually listen to his surprising collab tune with Bugzy Malone "Notorious" and I thought that was pretty cool, but that must be single for something Bugzy has coming out soon because I immediately noticed it wasn't on the tracklist for "Snakes & Ladders".
However, what I did notice also straight away, was another joint with Bugzy, "Grown Flex". The two songs aren't too dissimilar. "Grown Flex" contains a re-working of the room 2 classic "Heartbroken" by T2 - that song will never get old, and Bugzy and Chip along with producer Fanatix did a good job in making "Grown Flex" a unique and decent song in its own right. Chip's flow and rhythm at the beginning of the track is probably my favourite bit.
Chip gave you a good mix and once again showed his versatility with the different types of songs he included on the tape. You had classic, grimy, fire spitting songs like "No Goat", "Allow It" and "Killer MC", you had slower, more party-type, bashment rhythms on tracks like "See Through" and "Party Ah Keep" and then there was personal introspective songs like "0420" and "Done Know" - amongst that you had everything inbetween as well. Although my favourite type of Chip is one where he's firing off lyrics like a sub-machine gun spraying bullets, I can appreciate he needs diversity on his albums and I do still like some of the more relaxed tunes that are more appealing to the ear.
My main criticism of the album was some of the performances of the features. For example, I haven't heard much of Headie One's music so I can only comment on this performance alone, and although I really liked what he was saying and thought the content was strong, how he said it just wasn't very smooth and he didn't really have any flow at all. Chip's verse was really strong and his tone and delivery was spot-on too. Headie One's tone and delivery was good but the bars just didn't seem that well put together or well thought out in terms of flow (and that is so important to whether a verse is gonna be hard or not). That "Rob like Holding" bar was nice wordplay thought I can't lie.
Another disappointing feature was Jme's on "Ignite". Chip and Dizzee both brought in terms of flow and energy. But again, Jme's flow wasn't really doing it for me. He's one of my favourite MC's in the UK and is within my top 10 of all time, so I was gutted that this song didn't come harder. I know he has a sick talent and prides himself on putting together simpler bars whilst makes them sound hard and impactful, but the bar on "Ignite" where he says "The only time your CD's on, is when I dash it in the bon", like this punchline didn't really land and just rhyming "on" with "bon" just felt pointless more than anything else - still love Jme though just wasn't feeling that verse.
Whilst we're talking about the features I have to mention MoStack. MoStack did not disappoint me, he absolutely brought it. Over the haunting trap instrumental, at first he picks a pocket of the beat that I didn't think worked, but as his verse went on, the drums come back in and he just slipped within it and it sounded so fucking hard. At one point he weaves in these ad-libs that he's going back and forth with, and yeah it's filthy, definitely check it, the track's called "100k".
Need to mention "Lumidee", Young Adz does his thing on the hook and both Chip and Young MA spit really well.
So, 2 songs I had heard from this project are "Killer MC" and "Flowers". The 2 Stormzy disses that came out a while back now both found themselves on Snakes & Ladders. Firstly, Killer MC is just Chip absolutely snapping. His spits with velocity and wit, his flow is hoppy and bounces off the grimy instrumental, creating a sensation like he's just smacking you in the face with the rhythm of his lyrics. If this was a boxing match then Chip was coming out swinging. The rhyme schemes are punchy too, adding to the onslaught. That being said, I think he was going light on "Killer MC" - "Flowers" is where Chip was in his baggg. This is the track where Stormzy got dismantled. This is the track why we haven't yet heard from big Mike. The cleverness and wit provokes a reaction from the listeners that can only endear you to Chip and understand his point of view. This reminds me of back in sixth form and hearing what Chip was doing to Yungen back then. Chip doesn't leave a stone un-turned on "Flowers" he covers everything he needs to, he asks a lot of questions of Stormzy that are yet to be answered, well, not that I've heard anyway. Listen to his flow when he says "but when it's sticky I'm the blue-tac or the super glue, you heard I got tunes for you, then trust me that was super-true".
Chip uses multi-syllable rhyme schemes (nothing too crazy but still smooth and impressive) to say what he needs to say and he has developed a very smart pen for wordplay as well as punchline rap. His flow falls out his mouth and through your ears and melts your brain in molten lava. There's many songs on this album that create this feeling. Don't get me wrong, some tracks like "Hersheys" and "Skeletons" I didn't fuck with, just not for me, but for the most part there were several very enjoyable tracks that I will come back to or add to my playlist. This is definitely enough for me to come back next time to hear what he's saying. Yeah, shoutout to Chip for being consistently sick at rapping and has been for some time now.
Star Track - 100k
7/10
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