review
003
I
have gone through the first four weeks of 2020 with people harassing
me day in and day out to
look into the debut album of Compton native Roddy Ricch. I had heard
Ricch before on “Racks in the Middle” with Nipsey Hussle back in
2017, but I hadn’t touched any of his solo projects.
Admittedly,
I had high hopes when approaching this album. The project reigned
atop the charts for almost a month, and definitely looking at the
tracklist, looking at the production and the features, looking at the
album cover, Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial gives off
the appearance of a very intelligent and conscious debut album. Meek
Mill is on the project, after all. There’s production by Billboard
Hitmakers and KidWond3r on the project, after all. And I have to say,
from the wording of the title, the look Roddy has on his face on the
album cover, and just knowing that Ricch is from Compton made me feel
some very Kendrick Lamar vibes about him. You would think that by now
I would instinctively not think positive things about an album held
in high esteem; when it clings to the charts like this album does,
that normally doesn’t bode well for the quality of the music.
However, I totally played myself on this one. I came into the project
with high expectations off the hype of the TikTok hit “The Box”
and I expected that hype to be matched throughout the project. I was
wrong.
While
“The Box” itself isn’t exactly a flex of Roddy’s intellectual
capabilities, it is very catchy and sounds great in the car, and
placing it immediately after the intro might be what killed the album
quicker than an album has ever been killed. “Start Wit Me” was
okay, with lines like “my diamonds offset like Cardi,” but Gunna
was on the song and that speaks for itself. 12
of Boogie’s 16 bars on “Tip Toe” end in ‘nigga.’ Lil Durk’s
verse on “Moonwalkin” makes me wish Gunna had more airtime on
this project. And to top it off, Meek Mill’s verse on “Peta” is
so mediocre knowing what kind of potential Meek really has in him.
There’s a lame reference to Pokemon and an extra long verse where
the dude can’t keep on beat. Blueface has more lyrical stamina than
Meek did on this track.
I
was close to throwing in the towel with this album on “Boom Boom
Room.” This track has to be a joke. Roddy flexes his Shakespearean
vernacular on this track, where the hook proclaims:
“Fast
car, make it go vroom vroom
Take
her to the Boom Boom Room”
And
if this isn’t bad enough, the very
next line shows him stroking his own ego like this:
“I’m
a visionary, got these niggas scary…
Been
working on confidence, and respect? I got a lot of it”
I
seriously doubt anyone respects Roddy Ricch or sees him as a
visionary for sounding like a toddler running to the toilet to go
potty. I have heard more children refer to their bowel movements as
“boom-booms” than I have heard grown men refer to sexual
intercourse like this.
The
worst
track is “Perfect Time,” which exhibits another one of this
project’s problems; Roddy’s voice. Here he switches his voice
from high-pitched to low-pitched, from cool and confident to
squirrelly and pubescent almost interchangeably, for no other reason
than to presumably catch the listener’s attention. And
it does catch my attention. People screaming in fear draws attention.
Natural disasters draw attention. Donald Trump’s tweets draw
attention. But you wouldn’t sample the sound of nails on a
chalkboard and think naturally accept this as a way to accent your
musical prose. It sounds bad. Plain and simple. Why?
Final Thoughts
I will go insane if I entertain the possibility this album is anything more than okay, I guess. And the reason I’m this bewildered by this project crashing and burning in front of my very ears is because Roddy Ricch has noticeable potential. He can write. He can perform live. He has a voice that carries a level of maturity. The issue arises on tracks like “Boom Boom Room” where he uses the voice more so than he does the maturity.
With
that being said, I’m anxious to see where Roddy takes it from here.
Is he going to establish himself as a fixture, or is he going to
fade away as “The Box” slowly slides off the charts?
Most Favorite Song: “The Box”
Least Favorite Song: “Perfect Time”
My Score: 40%
