Cruel Summer Review

Here is a CD that has built plenty of buzz over the past few months with plenty of publicity including the signing of 2 Chainz, beef with the producer of "I Don't Like", and also the unneeded coverage that has been on Kim K. and Kanye's love life. This 12 track compilation features the entire GOOD music roster (excepts Q-Tip) and starts out really strong with "To The World" featuring some great vocals from R. Kelly and Teyana Taylor. Kanye West came in with some unique wordplay as he calls himself the "god of rap" and proclaimed to be taking a "holy crap" on the competition. After such a strong introduction comes "Sin City" a very creative track that lacks the theatrics and epic feel the first track delivers. There was also no memorable verses in the song besides the short spoken word which really seemed to be beyond simple for spoken word speakers. There was a small sense of "that's it" whenever he was finished speaking, and not to mention that same feeling from Mos Def's (Malik Yusef) after his verse. "The One" was very well produced, but the lyrics from the chorus didn't seem to fit the overall theme on the song. 2 Chainz was a total waste on this track, and wasn't even remotely entertaining. The verses from Kanye and Big Sean both told a story, and 2 Chainz babbled on about his usual (clothes, money, and sex) which took away from the track. Other than these tracks and a couple others the rest of this short album has had releases before the album came out. But there was a surprise add-in of a verse from Ghostface Killah who unfortunately did not deliver as anticipated, but held his own.
"Bliss" was also a great track including John Legend and Teyana Taylor who definitely made a statement as a singer on this album. But overall this album seemed to never come together as well as the tracks from GOOD Fridays. 


Beats: 8.5 out of 10
Lyrics: 7.75 out of 10
Creativity: 7.5 out of 10
Originality: 8.8 out of 10

Overall Rating:  7.75 out of 10