By WILLIAM WITCZAK
Chiddy Bang’s long awaited debut album has finally hit the shelves, and although it isn’t as good as some of their earlier, rawer work, it’s still worth a listen if you want something original to get the party started.
For those who aren’t familiar with them, Chiddy Bang is comprised of Chidera “Chiddy” Anamege and Noah “Xaphoon Jones” Beresin who mix genres with hip hop and alternative sampling being a big component of their music. This makes their music the type you’d pre-drink to or you’d find at clubs — high energy music to get people moving.
Chiddy Bang’s strength on past releases was their ability to combine samples from other songs (popular or not) with Chiddy’s humorous rapping styles and this holds true with their new album.
The best songs are the ones where samples are featured heavily, with Mind Your Manners (feat. Icona Pop) and Happening being standouts. It’s where they don’t use heavy sampling that the album falls apart.
Various songs on the album just feel generic, with the beats and rapping sounding like something you’ve heard a thousand times before. Chiddy is a good rapper; it’s just that a lot of it when he’s on his own just sounds unoriginal. It’s rather unfortunate, since about half of the music on the album is innovative and original.
It leaves a very uneven feeling, as opposed to their early mix tapes, which got the attention of such rappers as Kayne West and Jay-Z, that were solid all the way through.
On the whole when Chiddy Bang is at its best, it’s really upbeat party music that will get everyone hopping up and down to the beat of the music.
It’s just unfortunate that only half are worth listening to. For a debut album it’s a good effort, but, unfortunately, all the money that was put into the recording didn’t seem to make it better as a lot of their mix tapes recorded very cheaply are of a much better quality. It’s still worth checking out, but maybe pass on buying the whole album and just buy a couple of their singles instead, or better yet, check out some of their earlier mix tapes.
I give the album 3 out of 5