Such a shame that one of the greatest rappers there ever was or will be had to have been featured on a shambling Frankenstein monster of a song. The rhythms driving the verses and choruses are so disparate that the song essentially has to stop and reboot as it changes sections. The track is made up of a few very distinct parts - a hazy, almost shoegazy intro and a few different trap beats - that don’t transition into one another smoothly in the slightest. As to be expected, 3 Stacks delivers a great verse, but the song structured around it is a wreck. “Beibs in the Trap” kicks off with percolating synths and a fast, melodic flow from Toronto up-and-comer Nav - the stage is set for the song to transform into an energetic banger, but the proceedings screech to a halt when most of the instrumentation disappears as Travis delivers his verse.Įven more disappointing is the opener, “The Ends,” which pairs La Flame with none other than Andre 3000. Instead, brace yourself for cringeworthy bars like “Newspaper stand, we press the issue,” “Snipe it, swipe it, trapper, rapper,” and my personal favorite, “Relieve my heart of malice, hit my palace / Stroke my CACTUS.” Are you fucking kidding me?įurthermore, while Trav admirably continues to fold experimental elements into his music, a lot of his choices don’t go over well many times throughout Birds, the ways he goes about subverting typical party anthem song structure simply wind up stripping the tracks of their momentum. If you were expecting that to continue or improve on Birds, that’s too bad. Rodeo saw Travis really step up as a lyricist, competently delving not only into his love of partying, but also themes like family, love, isolation, and addiction in equally catchy ways. For one, Travis’s bars on a lot of these songs are godawful. How it is that a bunch of producers and engineers working for a respected label like GOOD Music either didn’t catch this shit or didn’t care enough to fix it is beyond me.īut there are problems here that extend beyond mixing and mastering. On Scott’s album, the song’s hooky synth lead noticeably distorts with each and every note. On Thugger’s album, the track’s Caribbean-inflected instrumental is pristine. “Way Back,” for instance, transitions into a haunting, multilayered synth and guitar outro that’d make Kanye well up with pride but for as beautiful as this section could’ve been, the mix is so fucking bad that I was worried my headphones were busted when I first heard it.Īnother prime example of the record’s poor post-production quality is unearthed by examining the state its lead-in single, “Pick Up The Phone,” is in on Birds compared to how it sounds on Young Thug’s latest release, Jeffery. The result: many of the record’s opulent instrumentals are at least partially obscured by a murky haze of noise. Unintentional distortion and clipping (a crackling sound similar to the noise you hear when your speakers or auxiliary cords are on their last legs) are readily apparent on nearly every song. The questionable decisions that plague the project undoubtedly start with the awful mixing. But there’s a sloppy halfheartedness to it all that squanders moments of would-be greatness and drags lackluster songs down even lower. On the surface, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight is a continuation of Scott’s usual style the record is comprised almost exclusively of nocturnal club music and is supported by a bevy of big name guests. Put differently, no other trap rapper puts together eight-minute tracks with lengthy instrumental passages or punctuates big-brag verses with sweet chamber pop breaks. His lyrics may fixate on reckless and impulsive hedonism, but every other element of his music typically feels intellectualized to a degree that mostly goes unmatched within trap music. Though Travis assembles yet another wrecking crew of features and producers, this project just doesn’t have the same spark that his previous efforts did.įor the uninitiated, Houston rapper/singer/producer Travis (formerly Travi$) Scott is a maximalist trap mastermind whose chief modus operandi is giving turn up music an artsy flair. La Flame’s latest project, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight - a reference to both selling crack and R&B singer/pianist Brian McKnight - is, conversely, shallow as can be. The depth these elements lent Rodeo was undeniable, making it easily one of the best projects of last year. It had wonderfully produced progressive trap epics (like “3500” and “Oh My Dis Side”), straightforward bangers (“Antidote”), some surprisingly introspective cuts (“Apple Pie,” “Ok Alright”), and even a running theme conveyed through a series of fantastic spoken word interludes courtesy of T.I. Travis Scott’s 2015 debut album, Rodeo, had a bit of everything.
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