Average Rating: 9/10
Overall Rating: 9.2/10
2. GMC (10/10)
3. Boomin’ Ft. Tennille (9/10)
4. Sour Apples Ft. Travis Barker (10/10)
5. Penny Hardaway Ft. Ghostface Killah (8.5/10)
6. Bundle Up (9/10)
7. Gas Station Ft. Bun B (7.5/10)
8. Get Straight (10/10)
9. Swimsuits Ft. Mayer Hawthorne (10/10)
10. Roll Call Ft. Asher Rosh, Chip Da Roller & Boldy James (8/10)
11. Summer Jam Ft. Maxine Ashley & Phereall (8/10)
Midwest Hip-hop got better throughout the years, and at some point they developed mainly two things, great lyricism, which is the kea rule for hip-hop in places like Detroit, or great flows, which is the kea rule for hip-hop in places like Chicago. Both have been combined before, but more in a 50/50 style with the same artist. But now, The Cool Kids are in the game. The Cool Kids are a hip-hop duo, made up of Chuck Inglish, who is from Chicago, and Mike Rock, who is from Detroit. So let’s see how things will work when the 50/50 technique which is used be 1 artist be a 200% technique used by two rappers from the two most iconic hip-hop cities in the Midwest.
Yes, The Cool Kids are finally making an album, after making mixtapes since something like 2005 or 2006. Now, after making these mixtapes, it is expected that this album “when Fish Ride Bicycles” will do good. But let’s see, can they fix there errors, that mostly have to do with the production, and can they maintain the lyrical strength and there strong flow they had during those mixtape years?
When Fish Ride Bicycles is mainly a lot like there few mixtapes. Lyrically there music has some very strong wordplay and metaphors. There is just a lot of work put in the lyrical strength for this album, and personally I think this album is lyrically better than there mixtapes, and better than most of the music out right now. As for their flow, The Cool Kids where using there same old flow, only a bit better, there flow was smooth and extremely balanced, now there flow is smoother and is more balanced, which is an even better thing for this album, and as for the production here, the album had a cleaner cut and better beat than there mixtapes, but the production is still not exactly at a professional level.
The album has it’s clear successes and flaws, but either way the whole album was great lyrically, the lyrics where strongly put on and then tied together by the great flow that the held on for most of the album. Some of the album’s most notable tracks where “Sour Apple”, “Get Straight”, “GMC” and “Swimsuits“. What really makes them the best tracks on the album the best ones was there still mediocre, but stronger production, something that the rest of the album struggled with.
As I mentioned, the album struggled with its production. I feel like the album was more amatory recorded then professionally, and honestly many of the beats on the album sounded the same. Which really got me a bit bored at some point, but thankfully the strong lyrical flow kept the album tied together and the great lyrics made the production look okay, and cleaned it a little at the very least.
The Cool Kids showed me most of what they showed me before on their mixtapes. They had the same positives and same errors, the only difference was that the positives got better, and the errors where just a bit less obvious. Overall, the album was exactly something that the Cool Kids needed to show there real skills on a major album. They showed there real talent, only with some improvements, that’s exactly what an artist or group should do in their first major release in my opinion, show new audience what they can really do, and the Cool Kids did exactly that, unlike many other artists who just go with ‘the trend’ in their first major release.
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