Curren$y – “New Jet City” | Mixtape Review

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Words By | (Guest Writer) Jerid Woods
Pen Name | J-Wooda
Twitter | @TheRealJ_Wooda

The Favorites

“Living For The City”
“Mary”
“Moe Chettah”
“New Program” (Spotlighting Young Roddy)

After releasing his “debut” studio album, The Stoned Immaculate, Curren$y has took about as much time to sleep as an insomniac. He has accumulated an already-legendary amount of work in the past few years and a niche position as one of the kings of the current underground internet hipster scene. While doing so, he has solidified himself as the Rumpelstiltskin of the “stream of consciousness” flow; weaving golden bars, laced with familiar topics like money, cars, drugs, and women.

These might strike you as overused concepts, but it’s his delivery – backed by an unforgiving Louisiana southern drawl and coupled with an ear that rivals a maestro picking through musical scores – that give him his necessary position, as head honcho of the “Never Die Corporation.” One of the biggest problems for his listeners is figuring out where the chorus begins and ends, because you honestly can become lost in his streamlined delivery and cohesive lines. He isn’t necessarily out to wow his listeners; instead he delivers consistently new scenes, backed by descriptive bars that register and resonate with the listener as candid snippets into the everyday life of Spitta Andretti.

New Jet City is Spitta’s latest offering. It’s 14 tracks deep and filled heavily with features, a surprising move for the habitual solo pilot; known only to allow a few into the cockpit to observe his steering. It is also blessed with contributions from the likes of DJ Toomp, Harry Fraud, Statik Selektah, Thelonius Martin & Three and others. The intro/title track sets the tone for what we are to expect throughout the tape, boss narrative from the boss. Spitta wastes no time kicking us in gear with hypnotic, cohesive bars, pausing only for gasps of air; accompanying these slight pauses, are seamless transitions linking ideas in the lucid “Stream of Consciousness” flow mentioned earlier:

“My Cuban Link cables, prove I’m in the majors/
A prime time player, High quality rhymes/
Earn these wagers, Allowing me to make wagers/
Double your life savings, We on yachts waving…”

Seamless transitions from bar to bar infused with a masterful delivery continues to separate him from other weed stuffed, hipster associated rappers.

Easing on, we have “Clear” (featuring Jadakiss), a track put together by Statik Selektah which possesses light background brass with a slight crescendo effect across a free cymbal, boom-bap style drum patterns and a beautiful in-and-out Saxophone. This ensemble shows it’s clear the maestro is still a star when it comes to beat selection. Both artist deliver vivid, laid back narratives explaining the differences between being the best, annihilating competition, and the clarity it takes to be the boss. We then ride the smooth vibes up into an aggressive, Lex Luger produced take (“Choosing”) featuring Wiz Khalifa and Rick Ross where the familiar trio indulge in all that their success has afforded them.

“Sixten Switches Part 2” allows us to descend back into the familiar laid back vibes, thus leading into the second half of the tape with “Three 60” (Featuring Juicy J), “Living For The City” and “Drive” featuring Young Roddy and Styles P who both delivered decent, but not great verses on a song that felt out of place. Young Roddy was under a scrutinizing eye since this project was initially proposed as an introduction for him; it obviously materialized into something else. Things are placed back in perspective on “B*tch Get Up” featuring Juvenile and wrap up solo tracks like “Mary” featuring a hypnotic ode-like chorus and encouraging lyrics detailing the enlightened focused mind frame the herb gives the wordsmith when he starts (And I’m sure finishes..) his day with the Ganja.

The over-saturated feature list becomes a thorn in the listener’s side later in the tape. For example, Trinidad James provided a healthy energy to “Purple Haze” but left an unsavory performance towards an otherwise great track. His repeated Mike Jones-esque unimpressive bars can jar out of a wonderfully balanced experience provided by Lloyd and Spitta. Then came the stale, unnecessary French Montana struggle track, “These B*tches”, but Spitta resuscitates the tape with a solo performance on “Moe Chettah” as he gives us more on his life and how he’s achieved his current status. Ending with a redeeming outro from Young Roddy on “New Program” drawing attention to his frustration with the industry wanting him to change his image, wasting no time to explain perfectly how he is going to stick to his morals that were undoubtedly instilled in him from the his mentor.

Score one for Roddy.

The nuances of a few unnecessary features in an attempt to broaden his audience isn’t enough to derail this offering from going up amongst the great releases that Curren$y has already given us, as he never let us down lyrically and the production was on point as expected. There is obvious replay value, though I’m certain we won’t have to use it all up, as Curren$y never makes his fans wait long for the next Jet…. I mean release.