Defsounds

What happens when you put four rappers who in their own individual careers, and have never had any kind of real commercial success? One has never put out his own official album, but has an array of mixtapes and freestyles that in all honesty are probably better then some peoples entire album collections. The other was probably most known for being Eminem's former close friend, then enemy, and now friend again. The next was signed to Aftermath or Interscope, but was then soon dropped after his first album was released on Koch. The last one is a rapper who had only one hit. His first album went gold, but other than that no one in the mainstream cares about him, because in all honestly who still listens to Pump It Up? Upon hearing that Joe Budden, Royce da 5'9, Crooked I, and Joell Ortiz created their own group, many of the worlds mainstream hip hop fans will hear the names not recognize half of them, and then resume listening to their Gucci Mane and Soulja Boy compilation album. But if you have any idea what good music is, or if you're someone that appreciates amazing lyrics. What these four rappers have done is something that will keep your Mp3 player satisfied for a long time. Despite what the mainstream may say, these are four of the best rappers in the game right now, and Slaughterhouse may just be the album this year, with the lyrical firepower to dismantle any catchy song.

Production 7- There are beats that can go with any genre of music. There are beats that give off a more sensitive aura to listeners and then there are the Slaughterhouse beats. If you like guitar riffs, heavy bass drums and lots of electrical chords, the production on this album is near flawless for you. There is only one kind of beat on this album, a hard beat. The ones made for a rapper with an endless vocabulary to rip to shreds. The production on this album was uptempo with a jazz, rock, rap combination that came out sounding pretty impressive. The group managed to get some mainstream producers, but every beat had an underground sound to it. These were not club beats, these were booth beats, the kind you use when it's time to freestyle on the radio with Flex, or get into an intense rap battle. There was no particular set of production that blew your mind away on this album, but your talking about four lyricists, they want you to focus on what their saying and not what the beat is. Radio heads will not find the production on this album attractive to any club, but in the car on a hot summers night with the windows rolled down and the bass all the way up, every single song turns into a banger.

Lyrics 10.5- Lyrically this album is completely flawless, these four rappers are some of the most complete rappers you will ever hear, when it comes to rhyming. Everything you could ask from a lyricist is here. The metaphors, wordplay, tempo, vocabulary, synonyms, transitionals, breath control, punchlines, double entendre's and trash talk are all in this album. Every single one of these men were on a mission. There is no let down at all on any verse on any song. If you take away the beat and just leave it as an acapella you are still left with bleeding ears and an open mouth from being to shocked to speak, but to impressed to stay quiet. This is just textbook rapping at its best. There is no other way to say it. Royce out of everyone in the group shines the brightest and just destroys every single track on this album, if lyricism was a crime he would be in jail for life. Ortiz, Budden, and Crooked I are no slouches either, and together the amount of lyrical fire power being shot out through your speakers, just may leave any true hip hop head with enough lines to keep them satisfied for the rest of the year.

Songs 7.5-  This part of the album is probably the hardest thing to judge. The group has content on the album, but its hard to pay attention to the content, when the lyrics are just so crazy. The group does a great job of managing bars between the four of them, and you get a fair dose of  about everyone on every track. There are one or two songs where all four will not rap, but in those songs the one who does not rap may be on the hook. Some of the song concepts are just amazing, Lyrical Murderers featuring K Young is one of the best songs on the album, and show's off the lyrical skills of all four artists, with Royce as usually leading the pack. The song "Pray" will give fans the opportunity to see, hear the struggles and triumphs of Ortiz, Crooked, and Royce, while Budden stays on the hook and lets his other members shine, and on Sound Off, that is exactly what they do is sound off in a lyrical barrage, that is so potent that you may need to listen to it several times just to get half of the things that were said. There is no particular song that they gripe about their feelings towards how they are treated in the rap game, but through out the album, their lyrics show just how frustrated they are with the state of the game, and some of the people making money in the industry at the moment. On the downside this album will more then likely only appeal to one group of people. If your not a fan of hardcore beats, with harder rhymes and crazy wordplay, then this album isn't for you. There's no club song, no song for the ladies, and no crossover pop song on this project.

Conclusion 8.5- In this age of hip hop, it is very hard to find one artist that will give you good lyrics, great songs, and have at least decent production. So to get a group of four rappers to get on one album and give you all of that is the ultimate plus. These four rappers have not made the biggest noise on the mainstream platform of hip hop, but individually as underground rappers they have become legends in their own regards, or are slowly building up their reputation to be considered one of the best in the underground scene. Working together as one group, has produced what will go down as one of the best group albums in the last ten years. Who knows if this will be the first and only time these four men make an album together, but if it is this was definitely something worth doing, and hopefully for fans everywhere, it will be something worth buying, because these guys did exactly what their name stated. They slaughtered every word, rhyme, and beat that got in their way. Four complete rappers put together a complete album, leaving you in awe of their skills, and slowly getting that itch to hear some more good music.

If you have any comments for this writer you can contact him at lyricalthoughts@gmail.com

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