There’s a lot of new music out – let’s get into it!
As a fan of Drake rapping, Iceman started off solid but at a certain point I can’t keep listening to how people have wronged and switched sides on a future billionaire, Maid of Honour was interesting but tailed off and I couldn’t get past the intro of Habiti. But I’m not here to talk about that. I listened to the most important album to drop that night. Lil Shine’s Get Rich or Die Sippin. Marking the potential end of the Plugnnb era of SoundCloud rap, as he, one of the prominent figures, was also just given a 36 month sentence for federal wire fraud and identity theft charges.
There’s something so annoying but yet so beautiful about the sound of his album and lyrics that makes me feel like I’m 20 years old again.
It’s fitting that with 2016 almost feeling like the peak of the Pluggnb era, Lil Shine drops possibly his best work when he was only four days away from sentencing, capping the end of an era ten years later.
A title with a nod to 50 Cent’s 2003 album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ an instagram post ad for his album which was a parody of Drake becoming an exploding robot after drinking a sip of Sprite to re-focus in the studio, Shine’s version had him sipping from a cup of lean, and a remake of a scene from the first episode of Breaking Bad, he certainly knew how to have fun on his way out and marketing the album well.
The album kicks off with Nobody which is an exciting track that feels like a throwback to a time period that has since past. Maybe I’m the only one nostalgic listening to a 21 year old, yet something feels familiar listening through the eighteen-track album. Shine has fun melodies, great energy, a good sense of humor, and solid production and engineering.
The fifth track Like That was my personal highlight for the album. A strong track featuring a great visual, with some solid choreography. Shine’s lyricism and melody works the best on this track in the album and it’s not a surprise why this track is one of the top most listened to ones on the album.
On the sixteenth track Red Dot, featuring KanKan, he and his counterpart go back and forth and Shine opens up the second part of the song with a reference towards T-Wayne’s Nasty Freestyle. He then goes onto rapping about how us as regular people wouldn’t want to drink the cup of drugs he’s drinking because it’d be too powerful for us.
The album has the common themes of drug dealing, addiction, women and money. And while that formula can get boring, Shine still made something worth hearing on his way to prison.
An album by a 21 year old drug dealer from the dark web is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but what works here is the youthful energy in his high-pitched vocals, along with the production on the album and the feeling of invincibility despite still facing a lengthy prison sentence at the height of his music career.
Shine’s album is out and can be listened to on every platform. We’ll next see him in three years.
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