TreaZon Versus Time, Patience & The Music Industry
Have you ever listened to an album that related so much to your life and left you speechless each time? For months, I’ve experienced this feeling. I’ve wanted to write about it, but the words just wouldn’t come up. In eight years of being a journalist, this is the first time where I felt more like a fan than a writer listening to TreaZon’s Versus Time. I was enjoying the music, and being scared of how close it hit home.
Connecting to TreaZon was easy. He’s an up and coming rapper who is slowly building a community of loyal fans. Replace rapper with journalist and you have me. TreaZ is, like millions of people worldwide, trying to chase his dreams and succeed by inspiring a generation. “Time’s the biggest enemy I got/ it’s always so against me whether I’m fighting it or not,” he raps on “Time.” Who can’t relate to the effect of time?
The idea behind Versus Time works together as a unit. When you strip each word on its own, you have the two main components that make up the album’s concept. Versus is a word used to describe competition. Time isn’t the only opponent. Shadowboxing with the music industry is something TreaZon does many times throughout the album on songs like “Versus” (“No Control verse, that’s because I got too many names”) or the Ro Ransom-assisted “Euthanasia.”
Time is where the album comes together. It’s the main factor in his rhymes. The intro is over five minutes long, a chapter in the autobiography of TreaZon, that lets you completely into his life, his past, and his feelings. TreaZon’s struggles haven’t made him bitter. In fact, his determination just appears tenfold because of it. The album’s closer, “Ask,” acts as a sequel to “TreaZon’s Prone To Sin” and is a fitting wrap-up. Tupac inspired the “we no longer asking, we just taking everything” hook, which plays into the type of change TreaZon goes through on Versus Time. His patience weens as it progresses until he realizes he needs to ditch that and let aggression take over. Could it be a glimpse into his next project?
“Overthinking is my double edge sword/ I’m always getting stabbed with it”
As much as comparisons do more harm than help, TreaZon really does cross into a lane that Kendrick Lamar rides well. I get the vibe that TreaZ could murder a rapper in cold blood in the same Kendrick has shown us a few times in his career, but both artists are more focused on creating bodies of work that resonate with listeners. The long term goal is to affect and change the world, not just make music for the moment. That’s as far as the comparison goes.
Versus Time is the first album I’ve felt represented my life so closely since Ro Ransom’s Ro Ransom Is The Future. TreaZon has a gift of relatability by projecting his fears and wants in his music. Not just the message, though, his lyrics are strong. You can have a great message but without the right execution it won’t have the right impact. This is the type of album that a huge community of people can relate to, especially those indirectly in his shoes. Time is everyone’s enemy, none greater than during the struggle to make something out of yourself.
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