On the same day a couple weeks ago, we got a new full length LP from one-third of the Griselda group, Benny The Butcher, and the collaborative album from rap channel, Lyrical Lemonade, executively produced by Cole Bennett, who produces and directs most of, if not all, the flamboyant and colourful videos we see on Lyrical Lemonade.
Benny The Butcher - Everyone Can't Go
After a huge upshoot in popularity and presence in the game, and an extensive body of work to back it up, Everyone Can't Go felt somewhat of a victory lap for Benny The Butcher. We here him flexing his lyrical chops in a variety of different ways on this LP. We here glamourous and glitzy production such as the opener Jermanie's Graduation, and also darker, uglier production too, like on TMVTL, which has some dope beat switches in as well. The truth is, Benny sounds clear and sharp over both styles - Hit-Boy and The Alchemist tag-teamed the beats on this tape so you already know the production bout to go hard. His pen game was on-point on Everyone Can't Go, as you'd expect it to, with impressive multi-syllable rhyme schemes and adventurous flows, and he also gave us some cool narrative-type tracks on TMVTL and How to Rap, where Benny breaks down his formula for success, such as the lyrics, "first, you gotta be nice with it, I build my shit ciphering, long hours in dark studios, that was the price of it". There were some really solid features on here too, notably from Lil Wayne on Big Dog, who spits the muckiest rhyme schemes and super-nice bars as well, I liked the part where he spits "Tunechi and the Butcher, I shoot you, he'll juug you, the mute be on the blooka, that's the Uzi with the shusher". I first heard Big Dog in a taxi in Thailand randomly when I was there, I had no idea this track existed, it must've just dropped as a single or somet, I had no idea that it was for an upcoming album at the time, that taxi driver had serious tracks though. Overall, a more than solid album from Benny. A well deserved victory lap and an album with charisma and dexterity to celebrate it.
8/10
Star Track - How To Rap
Lyrical Lemonade - All Is Yellow
If anyone isn't too sure about Lyrical Lemonade and what it is, as far as I am aware, it's a rap channel that produces super detailed and fun music videos, primarily by the young, Cole Bennet, who for his age, has had a tremendous impact on the current day trends we see in modern-day trap rap. This channel has helped springboard a lot of careers that came to popularity in the Soundcloud era, most notably the late Juice Wrld, RIP. But in recent years we have seen Lyrical Lemonade put on MC's who don't traditionally fall into that bracket. For example, Godzilla by Eminem was released on Lyrical Lemonade's YouTube channel, and on this collaborative album we hear artists such as Kid Cudi, JID, Dave, rather than just the expected artists that come with the project, like Ski Mask The Slump God and Lil Durk. The success of the channel has been cool to witness, even if it's not my taste entirely, many of the artists that found themselves on this project, I am a big fan of. To the project, it was always going to be a bit of a randomly shuffled mixed bag. What I did enjoy was that nobody sounded like they were taking themselves or the project too seriously. Some of the off-the-wall collaborations probably allow for that, such as pairing Lil Yachty with Joey Bada$$. But it meant that the project comes off as fun, light-hearted entertainment, which I think represents the channel fairly well. We do have some undeniably awesome tracks though, for example, First Night has a funny Teezo Touchdown vocal introduction, which flip-flops into a wonderfully infectious hook from Juicy J, and two great, energetic and aggressive rap verses, one of which from Denzel Curry who sounded fierce and in-his-bag completely. There's the track, This My Life, where Lil Tecca gives us a catchy chorus and a nice summer tune to play then, Doomsday with Cordae and Juice Wrld is just brilliant. The two are rapping over the iconic Role Model beat of 'The Slim Shady LP', with smart rhyme schemes and witty back-and-forths, they totally do it justice and make the best track off the project - and Cordae once again proves his ability to go bar-for-bar with another MC is where he usually sounds the best, e.g, with Anderson .Paak. I would say those three tracks make for the best songs on the project with the remaining songs ranging from the 5/10 - 7/10 score. Without going into great detail, other songs that stick out as being towards the latter rating would be Fallout and Stop Giving Me Advice. On Stop Giving Me Advice we get the unusual pairing of Jack Harlow and Dave, though Jack's verses are pretty good, Dave still takes the 'W', and comes with some cold punchlines like, "You feel numb to the praise and the memories passin'? You ever robbed someone and it sounds like askin'? Didn't have no food, so you'd disguise it as fastin'". I thought that was ill. If you like Blink-182, listen to Hello There, I was creasing when I heard that. Yeah been going for too long here, but overall I enjoyed the project and made for some cool tracks for sure.
6/10
Star Track - Doomsday
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