Joey Bada$$- Summer Knights review

My first introduction to Joey Bad Ass was from when he debuted his video titled Survival Tactics early last year for his debut mixtape titled 1999. The Impression that I received was FINALLY a young NY emcee that actually SOUNDS like an NY emcee. Joey is a breath air for what have been a dead scene within New York for the past several years, The City has been suffering from an Identity crisis. But after listening to 1999 and then some of the tracks from his followup Mixtape titled Summer Knights, I feel that there’s still some hope left for the Big Apple.

What made his debut Mixtape “1999” so special is that it captured the true element of the golden era of the 90s that many fans have yearned for. The scary part about JOEY is that he’s ONLY 18 and he’s really just getting started. He sounds like a younger version of Buckshot shorty with more advanced rhyme schemes.

Summer Knights is a great followup and it re-captures the era that Joey loves to reminisce about: Hard boom bap beats mixed with clever and brain scattering lyricism along with portions of R&B flavored hooks to give it that mid 90s flow. You get a taste of what Joey can deliver and does a great job of re-capturing that era on songs such as Death of YOLO(Which could have been a jab at Drake and the Weekend), Right on Time which sounds like a nice flavored 90’s R&B/hip hop collaboration and Alowha which captures that classic Boot Camp Click grimy sound

Going into the middle of Summer Knights only gets better as Joey gets to truly showcase his sharp form of lyricism. While most emcees take the time to coast on hot beats(Fat Joe) Joey on the other hand tries his hand to handle the heat that Alchemist and DJ Premier hands him on Trap Door and Unorthodox” respectfully.

What makes Summer Knights so unique is that Joey shows that he also has SERIOUS bars and that he studied those before him on how to craft his flow. You can tell he had studied some of Nas’s earlier works on the song Reign. Reign showcases Joey’s introspective of his world through his rear-view. 95 till Infidelity is possibly my favorite cut off the tape because its like the classic corner store rap that I enjoyed back when I was coming up into hip hop.

There’s instances where the tape kinda of drags and some of the production provided by Pro Era sounds a bit repetitive but this is a great followup to what was considered one of the best releases of 2012(His debut 1999). Lets hope that Joey can recruit some of the best beat-makers for his official album and drop a classic to bring NY back in the forefront.

Vic Rating: 8.5 outta 10

Vic Da Ruler