Royce Da 5'9": Book of Ryan Review
“The Boom bap is coming back with an axe to mumble rap” — Royce Da 5’9" just dropped the anti mumble rap anthem and I love it.
Royce Da 5’9" turns his life into words in his latest studio album titled The Book of Ryan. The project brings back the classic 2000’s sound and it is quite refreshing in a day where every song includes trap drums. If you’re looking for bangers then this album might not be the one for you, but if you want an amazingly produced, sonically pleasing album with a deep message then you need to hear this shit for real.
There are so many positives from this album and yes this review is about to ride Royce’s dick a little bit. Every song is sonically pleasing and Royce incorporates humour where he can to lighten the mood of his rather dark upbringing. The massive highlight is the track Caterpillar which shits all over today’s younger rappers telling them to be respectful of the rappers that paved the way for them a.k.a ‘the old heads’, but also tells the older generation to be respectful of the younger rappers because they are still trying to bloom. The feature list on this album is pretty fire too — with appearances from J-Cole, Eminem, Pusha T, T-Pain and more. TBOR paints a picture of Royce’s life from growing up with an abusive father to trying to be a better father for his kids himself. Royce delves even deeper speaking on the effects that his father had on his life, from his personal drug use to his older brothers aggressive tendencies which led to him being arrested. There’s a lot of themes that you can unpack from this album, but for the sake of the review I’ll leave it at that.
The only negative I have of this album is a very minor one. The bonus track (a remix of Caterpillar)includes a verse from Logic in place of Eminem. Logics freestyled verse on this track was pretty weak and seemed out of place, especially when compared to Em’s verse.
In my opinion this album is close to being a masterpiece and I would go as far to say that it is in the same league as an album like Good Kid, M.A.A.D City in terms of storytelling.
Fav Tracks: Woke, Caterpillar, Dumb, Cocaine, Boblo Boat, Summer on Lock and Power
9/10
