As she closes the book on the Beauty Series with Shape Up, Leikeli47 sounds stylishly strong -- and leaves everyone else to catch up to her.
Shape Up is a charming body of work that will satisfy her base, but it might not capture the ears of others without some depth added to its subject matter.
NO NUANCE REVIEW
oooo this goes HARD. I don’t really care for the R&B cuts, but everything else is full of energy, hard hitting beats, catchy lyrics, and Leikeli47’s infectious personality. I’m late to the party, but don’t sleep on her, I think this is a rapper you’ll want to look out for.
I had known about the existence of Leikeli47 for a good amount of time. The only problem though is that I've always thought of her more as a "singles" artist and not as a "albums" artist. Her singles have always been great bangers, but the albums always disappointed me in some way. But I have to say that "Shape Up" is her best album to date! The bangers are still here like in "Chitty Bang", "BITM" and the bonus track "Instant Classic", ... read more
This goes as hard as the cover art. I really like the catchy background vocals and vocal samples, especially on opener 'Chitty Bang', and the otherwise minimalistic yet hard-hitting production. I feel like Leikeli47 is one step away from making an album fully constructed out of voices like a hip-hop version of Björk's 'Medúlla'. My main problem is that the delivery and lyrics can be too basic and the R&B cuts are nothing special.
Favourite Tracks: Chitty Bang*, Secret Service, ... read more
The singles were such bangers that I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed when the album was "just good". She still has a unique point of view and her performances on this record are very strong.
1 | Chitty Bang 2:26 | 86 |
2 | Secret Service 3:16 | 78 |
3 | New Money 3:08 | 70 |
4 | LL Cool J 3:33 | 75 |
5 | Zoom 2:50 | 79 |
6 | Done Right 3:24 | 69 |
7 | Free To Love 2:44 | 73 |
8 | BITM 3:09 | 75 |
9 | Baseball 3:35 | 65 |
10 | Carry Anne 3:33 | 75 |
11 | Jay Walk 2:37 feat. Miss J Alexander | 72 |
12 | Hold My Hand 4:33 | 66 |
13 | Get The Riches 2:47 | 69 |
14 | Instant Classic 2:37 Bonus Track | 81 |
#8 | / | WIRED |
#22 | / | KCRW |
#29 | / | The Needle Drop |
#35 | / | BrooklynVegan |
/ | AllMusic | |
/ | Uproxx |