>>Berner & Mozzy - Slimey Individualz - 3/10
>
>i'm expecting a lot of kind of bad bay area beats and
>lackluster bars from berner, offset by high quality vivid
>lyricism from mozzy

Pretty much exactly this. Mozzy sounds amazing at the top of the project. Delivery, pocket, patterns, lyricism are all top tier. I think Berner's problem is that he conflates being cool and being bored. As a person who raps professionally he's technically fine but his delivery holds him back. If he can't fake being interested in rapping these words he took so long to come up with then I can't be bothered to listen. Maybe it's a stylistic choice that he has not quite fully harnessed and/or developed. The instrumentals on this project are both varied and not great but Mozzy manages to sounds good on most of them. The album is loaded with features which is rarely a good sign. B-Real sounds out of place with his sharp staccato flow over smooth G-Funk. Logic attempts to stunt on us with rap showmanship but we don't care. Wiz sounds like he's there for the check. Very forgettable project but I might go back for some Mozzy verses. The best part of this project is that I get to hear Mozzy over more non-JuneOnnaBeat instrumentals and that's the only thing I've ever wanted from Mozzy.

>>Casanova & 30 Roc - Free At Last - 1/6
>
>30 roc is a great producer. he's responsible for some very
>good instrumentals over the past few years, including some
>fantastic beats that yachty somehow got a hold of and didn't
>make the most of. i'll stomach cas for some good 30 roc

Spotify lists a lot of people that aren't 30Roc as producers on this project. I can't pick out much that sounds like 30Roc. From what I know of his past works, he has a keen ear for samples and unconventional sounds that makes his instrumentals stand out. This sounds like 30Roc being instructed to make "type" beats. Very generic stuff on here, and not even particularly well-made generic stuff. I do not want to hear someone as brolic and steet as Casanova rapping in autotune about how a woman blocked him on social media. He sounds a lot like Busta on "Steppin Out." He sounds like 69 on "Relapse." He sounds desperate for a song of his to get some buzz throughout the whole project. NYC is so washed.

>>Famous Dex - Wave Creator
>
>listening to see how far he fell off and if bighead is still
>fucking with him

This didn't come out.

>>Lucki - Freewave 3 - 4/15
>
>lucki is capable of incredible highs ("root of all," most of
>/x/, random verses on YT only cuts) but he's been phoning it
>in lately. hopefully he can pull it together on this. 4
>chasethemoney beats is a huge bonus AND he got an earl
>sweatshirt beat AND feature. hoping lucki won't disappoint

Lucki delivers a mixed bag as always. He kind of does the same thing on every song with slight variations in flow. He's a piece of trash but he's cognizant of it but he also won't change. Basically the same theme he was exploring on his early tapes but now it's about relationships and detractors instead of bussin juugs from the window. It seems like he is "in the booth, tellin' the truth," à la Young Nudy, meaning a lot of freestyling and punching in. Possibly because of this I haven't caught too many good lines on this thing which is something Lucki generally delivers on. The beats are mostly serviceable but sometimes not particularly fitting. Lucki is mixed really high on some of these songs, usually way above the beat, and this is a little distracting. He works better when he's "in" the beat and you have to lean in a little to pick out his words. He's not doing his usual painting of vivid impressionistic vignettes on this tape and I exactly can't figure out why. Something about this isn't working and I think it's Lucki.

There are however some fantastic instrumentals on here. "Glory Boy" sounds like someone added trap drums to a Delarosa & Asora song or a Prefuse73 interlude (same thing?); "2012 Summer" sounds like a Chicago underground take on Drake's "Jaded." Lucki sounds very good over these different kinds of sound beds. I hope he goes in that direction in the future and gets back to writing more often because his current technique is not allowing him to deliver the highest quality product.

>>Pi'erre Bourne - The Life of Pi'erre 4
>
>listening for the beats. he generally gives his best stuff to
>carti and nudy but occasionally saves the cool instrumentals
>for himself. he's not at all a compelling vocalist so it's
>going to be a chore to make it through the whole thing

Also did not drop.