Album Review: “Delightful Bars” (Rapper Big Pooh)
For all but the biggest rap stars, being a rap artist is a full time j-o-b. And being a rapper is a tough gig: you’re on the road most nights, in-stores, interviews, recording whenever you have a chance to, the pressure of living up to the expectation of label suits, record sales, etc. For your average favorite rapper, its a blue collar gig – word to Rhymefest.
Some rappers approach the mic like they’re punching a timecard: they come to work every day and put in a solid effort, but its ultimately still a job for them. You can just sense it.
Rapper Big Pooh, one half of the NC duo Little Brother, is undoubtedly a hard working dude. He eschews the tag popping and stunting to bring you that real rap ish on both his solo projects and his work with partner Phonte. In his teaser to his full album Dirty Pretty Things, Pooh has dropped Delightful Bars, a 15-track project that showcases he’s willing to put in that work on the solo tip.
On each track, Big Pooh wipes the sweat off his brow and gets right down to it. No gimmicks, no flash. Just beats, rhymes and (real) life. On tracks like “Step It Up” Pooh spends a few bars schooling his young’n on life in the adult world. “Move” puts Pooh on the club dance floor, scheming on a dime piece while ducking trouble and d-riders.
Pooh is at his best when he’s breaking down situations in his own life. On “Rear View Mirror” Pooh lets the listener in on the situation between him, 9th Wonder and Phonte that many heads likely wondered about. Ironically, the 9th production fits like a glove, creating the most cohesive sound on any track on Bars:
“Rear View Mirror”
Unfortunately, more often than not, joints on Bars seem more like an effort than a passion. Tracks like the Illmind-helmed “Problems” and “Nothing Less” – which has Young RJ dropping a busy organ track over some hard snares – are nice, but never spectacular.
And that’s the biggest with problem with Delightful Bars: it never goes from good to great. There’s never any real “oh sh*t” moments where Pooh goes from working as a rapper to living as an artist. There’s little doubt Big Pooh’s past performance warrants him remaining in his current position, but if he wants that promotion, he’s going to have to seriously outshine his co-workers on his next project.
Tags: Delightful Bars, Rapper Big Pooh
you make a good point abt hard work vs. art. I think a lot of emcees get by on “hustle” and general ridiculous work ethic, putting new music out everyday, touring incessantly. I mean, that’s great and goes a long way in the business sense to establishing and keeping a fanbase and me personally, I appreciate that to an extent.
But really, if you’re not flooring me with the music, I could give a shit how many mixtapes you’ve put out in the past week. There’s like this thing where I’m supposed to like someone’s music because of their “hustle.” I’m like, bitch you ain’t nothing special. All of us are working full-time jobs with like 4 different hustles on the side just to get by. You think being a rapper is hard, try not gouging out your eyes everyday after 10 hours of menial labor. Hard work in real-life > hard work in rap
Its true. I’m not sure when we as a musical genre fell into the “quantity vs quality” trap, but we have. Again, I respect Big Pooh – nothing worse than a lazy rapper.