When a new year comes, I always end up with a pile of albums that I planned on listening to from the previous year but never got around to. I hate that. So I felt it was as good as time as any to dust off the Album Backlog column and clear the queue of unlistened to projects from 2020 that are sitting in my iTunes Music app.
Release Date: November 27, 2020 | December 18, 2020
Listening to Lil Wayne rap over various instrumentals for close to two hours wouldn’t be a bad thing in 2007, but in 2020 it kinda feels like work. Not to say that No Ceilings 3 and No Ceilings 3: B Side don’t have highlights. There are times Wayne shows that he can still drop clever lines and props for him sticking to the “Mixtape Weezy” format and even having DJ Khaled host the project (Even though that can be annoying at times).
But like I said after a while, the 34 songs just run together especially when you get to the three songs that each feature one of Wayne’s very young sons. Just grab the “No DJ” version of “BB King Freestyle” featuring Drake and keep it moving.
Release Date: December 11, 2020
Kid Cudi came back last year to critical and commercial success with his 7th studio album Man On The Moon III: The Chosen. I felt kinda bad because I never been that into Cudi. And sadly this album didn’t change that. I let this album play in the background a couple of times and it isn’t a bad album, just nothing that really grabbed me. Meh.
Release Date: November 27, 2020
Statik Selektah has a pretty good track record of putting out good projects (Random Fact: Can you believe this site first reviewed a Statik Selektah album way back in 2008? Crazy). If you like boom bap with skillful MCs in various lineups, you’ll like his latest project The Balancing Act.
Statik grabs from verses from his usual suspects (like Termanology, Joey Bada$$, Styles P, and Lil Fame) with some bigger names (like Nas, Black Thought, Killer Mike, 2 Chainz, and Bun B), mixed with some newer names (like Conway The Machine, Benny The Butcher, and Jack Harlow). It all balances out. Check it out.
Release Date: December 4, 2020
To be honest, I haven’t really checked out Your Old Droog since people thought he was Nas. While I mainly checked out this album for the Phonte and Black Thought features, I didn’t hate Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition. I always felt that Your Old Droog is like Action Bronson if Action Bronson was influenced by Nasir Jones instead of Ghostface Killah. And that’s fine.
Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition sounds exactly as I predicted and that’s fine too. I only kept a couple of songs from the project but the features I already mentioned are worth a listen.
