yea, the first few episodes were slow as they weeded out some of the less interesting folks, & got through the obligatory "we're going to make you do xyz even though it doesn't fit you as an artist because you have to adapt to everything (even though we know that's not actually how the business works)".


once they got to the spaces where the artists were making songs/videos/performances, it was dope.

I think the judges (& coach King Los) were very good. King Los really impressed me with his ability to help these artists work through things. I think Chance came off kind of as a dick at times & his feedback didn't always seem genuine (he had the nerve to tell someone they were being gimmicky with their flows/voice). To be fair, I watched after his shitshow album so I was already lookin at him with a side eye. TI is a trash person & his fake ass woke persona is grating, but he had good feedback. Cardi was great - you can say what you want about her but she was one of the most entertaining parts of the show. I think the judges had good chemistry together as well.

You can tell this was a netflix show with budget - it's a whole level above anything VH1's done in this realm.

I think the best artist won, but there was some sandbagging with him working with miguel (& then finding out he actually toured with miguel under his brother years ago) & then sounwave (who i'm sure he's been around before). I get why they'd keep that on the low, but still.

As for the artists themselves, DSmoke was clearly the best, Londynn has a look & sound that I could see working on a bigger scale, Troyman had some very good stuff but I could see him sort of fading to the background. I thought flawless could rap but was very uninteresting. old man saxon had a gimmick but it wasn't like it really went along with his music (ex. leon bridges doing the whole retro thing in look AND sound).

overall, I want to see where DSmoke goes from here. the inglewood high project is good but it was probably stuff that had already been worked on. i'm looking forward to his next thing when he's working with more folks like sir & sounwave, etc. he can def sound like a kendrick clone but hell, kendrick's influenced a ton of people & I think DSmoke has room to continue growing his sound.

if they bring the show back for a second season, I really hope they nail the judges again. you can't go from TI/Chance/Cardi to b level artists, even if they'd be good at giving feedback.