Here he’s more personal and purposeful than he was on his mixtapes, rapping about rapping but also lamenting the realities of being young and black in America.
B4.Da.$$ should be seen as a huge step forward and a platform for Joey to progress even further.
In an age when young rappers embrace musical abstraction like they're sprinting away from any semblance of "old-school," Bada$$ hits a sweet spot.
As it moves from warm, old school turntablism to the colder, harsher sounds of early gangster rap, B4.DA.$$ resists the current bent towards Trap, instead functioning as a love letter to the masters of hip hop’s Golden Age from one of its keenest students.
As a whole, there’s very little that’s progressive about B4.Da.$$ but it’s a distinguished retread and the most polished project the young emcee has put out to date.
B4.DA.$$ isn’t a stone-cold classic debut. Instead, it’s a playful, confident, compelling nod to the genre’s past that never reverts to fetishism or coasts on the legacy of the sounds it borrows.
With B4.DA.$$, Bada$$ has made a stellar mix of jazz-rap that harkens back to A Tribe Called Quest and Illmatic in a way that would actually make Nas proud.
Despite a few kinks and unnecessary tracks, B4.Da.$$ is a great album that revisits what we've come to know as classic deliveries, bass lines and cadences.
Drawing off nearly 40 years of hip-hop history, B4.DA.$$ is a hodgepodge work which equates organic, sample-oriented music with a certain type of old-fashioned conviction.
Ultimately, B4.DA.$$ is a lackluster album with little appeal beyond its dry technical flourish and fleeting moments of vulnerability.
B4.DA.$$ is a commendable performance from an MC who has every opportunity to capitalize on his next project with some more seasoning, experience, and focus.
None of which is to say it’s a bad album, just a lightweight one.
B4.Da.$$ (pronounced “Before The Money”) mostly sees the 20-year-old stick to his guns, flaunting his syllable-packed rhyme patterns over throwback beats made with piano loops, jazz samples and prehistoric sounding turntable scratches. To his credit, Bada$$ sounds more confident than ever, occasionally deviating from his trademark laid-back delivery to adopt a ferocious tone.
Once the novelty wears off, though, you’re left with an album that is too often set at the middling pace of a Fugees B-side, and a rapper whose technical abilities are nowhere close to those old timers he seeks to emulate.
FANTASTIC
Friendship ended with ALL-AMERIKKKAN BADA$$, now B4.DA.$$ is my best friend
My introduction to Joey, and an incredibly welcome one at that. East Coast revivalism done well, although Joey paints with brighter colors then the boom bap heads of the recent underground scenes. Hazeus View and Christ Conscious are the superduper tracks on this one, although Paper Trail$ can definitely hold its own weight. O.C.B. is heartwarming, the cover of Scenario is fun, and the song Teach Me which I believe is on the deluxe edition is a great, cute track to play in the background while ... read more
Joey releases a really solid first studio album here, I think it is a little underrated. Do not listen to the bonus tracks they are not necessary and the record is already close to being too long for it's own good.
1 | Save the Children 3:35 | 86 |
2 | Greenbax (Introlude) 0:48 | 80 |
3 | Paper Trail$ 3:14 | 92 |
4 | Piece of Mind 3:38 | 84 |
5 | Big Dusty 4:53 | 83 |
6 | Hazeus View 3:39 | 83 |
7 | Like Me 4:26 feat. BJ the Chicago Kid | 83 |
8 | Belly of the Beast 3:56 feat. Chronixx | 77 |
9 | No. 99 2:51 | 84 |
10 | Christ Conscious 2:53 | 92 |
11 | On & On 4:40 with Maverick Sabre, Dyemond Lewis | 91 |
12 | Escape 120 3:47 feat. Raury | 80 |
13 | Black Beetles 3:50 | 75 |
14 | O.C.B. 3:43 | 85 |
15 | Curry Chicken 3:33 | 87 |
#5 | / | Okayplayer |
#41 | / | The Needle Drop |
/ | HipHopDX | |
/ | XXL |