Styles: Art Rap, Experimental Rap | US
Man, we gon' play my man matt proxy real quick...
5, with fakemink, is a great start as it blends an Indie Rock intro which then transitions gracefully into a solid shared verse from Proxy and Fakemink. It also has some of the best writing from the album, like:
„It's like my mind is stuck in rear view
It's like you tryna speak,
I can't really hear you
[...]
Does the prison system really deserve to execute?
'Cause what if them niggas got you for shit you didn't do?
Does the homeless man outside desеrve your attitude?
'Cause hе got some values even though they don't matter to you“
It's more of a conscious bent than the rest of the album, which he unfortunately doesn't return to aside from a few more tracks.
STARS is much more daring production and rapping wise with an excessive amount of distortion and compression, until it segues into a more somber tone while maintaining the braggadocious lyrics. It's an example of this album's main problem, it simply doesn't know what it wants to do. Does he want to do hard-hitting Trap, Rock fusions, Sample-based introspective songs or whatever other ideas he presents here. Especially due to their short lengths, they often feel clunky and mismatched. I'm sorry for making such a tired comparison, but it feels very inspired by what Jpegmafia was doing on All My Heroes Are Cornballs, but Matt doesn't have the decade long tenure that Jpeg did when he made it, so he's not nearly as good at synthesizing all of it. I'm not even reaching with this comparison, as a feature from him was teased for the album but got scrapped, though he does end up doing the tag I named this part of the article after, which is repeated a few times across the album.
The next few tracks again delve into various subjects though big parts of them are repetitive and it leads to them just passing by without much of an impact, obviously not the goal with how grandiose they get at times.
The run from BLUE to LOVE&ADDICTION is easily the best part of this record. The production is tasteful with some of his best rapping present too. A strange detour during it is NEVER KILL YOURSELF, a solo never goodbye song. It's decent and charming, but a strange addition to the tracklist.
Blue has a heartfelt tribute to his deceased sister near the end, and LOVE&KILL has one of the best, albeit short, verses on the project:
„Know I keep my distance, I got tunnel vision
Feel it in my veins and ribs and heart
I took my bones and ripped through a mental prison
I know that I'm chose so they meant to listen“
I think Proxy, at least on this record, is at his best when he has something to say but doesn't try to be too pretentious, instead just trusting the listener to understand and enjoy it without needless gimmicks.
The closer GOD is another very well-written track in which he speaks more about his childhood, past struggles and his future as an artist.
Trojan Horse shows a lot of promise, but it often falls short in its execution. I do have a strong belief that Proxy will keep perfecting his craft and eventually release something truly great.
7.5/10
See also: Fakemink, Jpegmafia
- kreyzi
No comments:
Post a Comment