Also, Eamon’s voice is an acquired taste and on “Angels With Dirty Faces” it leans dangerously into corny.Featuring: Phonte, Jay Electronica, Common, Raekwon, Ab-Soul, Jared Evan, Mac Miller, Terrace Martin, Wale, Chance The Rapper, Problem, Nispey Hussle Block McCloud and Ill Bill do their thing but I enjoyed hearing the likes of Jay Royale and Eto more – they offered something different and the latter in particular has the best verse on the album. It’s great to hear Chino XL continues to eat up microphones, although the “you’re pussy like Erykah Badu’s perfume” line is really played out at this point.īilly Danze pops by to share some “Machine Gun Etiquette” but without Lil’ Fame, his guest verses often fall short and while the beat slaps hard, it doesn’t pack the punch it should. I really like the pure savagery of “Warhead” as it harks back to the raw stabs of “Put ‘Em In The Grave” (a JMT highlight). It’s a welcome break halfway through the record (which is a hefty 22 songs), as is the CZARFACE style “Don Eladio” that provides something different for Vinnie to rap to. The trademark reflective moment arrives with “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” that’s got a solid if underutilized piano loop. Giallo really nails that Stoupe style – I’d love to hear more Vinnie and Giallo. Willie the Kid, an underrated emcee if ever there was one, blesses a haunting Giallo Point beat on “Battle of the Camels” with some Wu-Tang-like philosophy. Rap styleĪ solo Vinnie Paz album clocking in at 69 minutes is going to be an arduous listen for some, but the guest verses help break things up. “Papi Wardrobe” sees Vinnie spitting with a G. You’ve got the usual producers here (Stu Bangas, C-Lance, Scott Stallone) that have given Vinnie that tough industrious sound in the 2010s that is different from what Stoupe’s dramatic offerings provided. “Burn Everything That Bears Your Name” is the sixth solo album from Vinnie and it’s as solid as you’d expect. It’s a balance that Vinnie has successfully managed but other than a couple of tracks, this is primarily hardcore kill-kill-killl Pazienza. So there has been growth where some may criticize him as being one-note, but it’s a growth often at odds with what makes Vinnie unique in the first place. One minute he’s craving murder, the next he’s offering parental advice. Much like his collaborators RA the Rugged Man and Apathy, Vinnie increasingly includes songs covering more mature themes like mental health and fatherhood that a young Vinnie Paz (or Ikon the Verbal Hologram) would have looked down their nose at. When Vinnie is sublimely ridiculous, he’s often ridiculously sublime. The best verses are where Vinnie strayed outside of the realms of reality ( “I’m the one that hammered the first nail in Jesus”) and into the sublimely ridiculous ( “I got degrees in being ignorant and weaponry”). In fact, if you read too much into what Vinnie is saying, you’ll want to check he doesn’t have all these guns he boasts of because it’s pure psychopath rap. It didn’t so much matter what he was saying, it was how it was written and how it was delivered. If you want some hard shit, you throw on some Vinnie Paz. It’s a great recipe that has been the engine behind much of Vinnie’s success.
There’s some neat wordplay there but it’s the vivid imagery combined with that vicious delivery. The line that always sticks out is “I’m savage, I write rhymes in pitch blackness, any motherfucker that fronts is left backless” from 2000’s “Genghis Khan”. My own opinion on Vinnie’s style is that his earlier work was more creatively written, even if it was simply spitting hot 16s. He had outgrown those limitations that came to define him. They possess more personal storytelling and it shows more depth to Vinnie’s usual style of spitting pure vitriolic hate. Looking back at the Vinnie Paz discography is genuinely overwhelming for any new listeners but the records specifically released as Vinnie Paz solo albums (not under the JMT moniker) do have a different feel to them.
Stoupe does provide a unique soundscape for Vinnie that has never really been replicated, but Vinnie’s style has been fairly similar since 2003’s excellent “Visions of Gandhi”. Purists may cite Jedi Mind Tricks as a trio (Stoupe, Vinnie Paz and Jus Allah) and they did reunite in 2008 but for the bulk of their career, Jedi Mind Tricks records have essentially been Vinnie Paz records.