9. Rapsody – Beauty and the Beast EP
Released: October 7, 2014 ~ Reviewed: N/A
Beauty and the Beast EP was my vote for album of the year. Per usual I was alone in this. Everything we’ve given folks negative marks for, she avoids and everything we praised she nailed with lyrical dexterity and deftness that if she was a man, we’d be lauding her as one of the elite. She changes her flow on damn near every song here, tackles topics from her love for the craft and commercialism, to black masculinity and our distrust of police as black people. Rapsody proves she’s the goods on (pick a song) songs like “Feel It” with a attacking flow displaying acrobatics that sound like it was a freestyle, or “Drama” where she’s delivering bars over a beat that your favorite rapper wishes he had a shot at.
I could keep giving examples and none of them would do this album justice. She once spit that “Niggas with opinions don’t support you on iTunes”. Sadly, I don’t know that she’ll ever get the recognition she deserves working with 9th, and that’s not a knock on 9th, more so a knock at the politics of the game. The title of this album is ironic to me because it perfectly sums up the uphill battle Rapsody has being a female in the rap game. We spend so much time using females as beautiful arm pieces and objects of desire that we don’t notice a beast when we see one. – Saule Wright