Many may not notice it, but in hip hop there is a recurring theme when it comes to hip hop groups. Usually the leader of the group gets his foot in the door first, blows up big then introduces the world to his team. Eventually, people start to recognize not just the group as a whole but each individual member as they do their solo thing. Thanks to the success the leader has gained. A very good example of this is 50 Cent and G-Unit. After 50 blew up big, the rest of the team got notoriety and made names for themselves individually. Now let's look at New York's next big rap group. A$AP Mob. They're lead of course by A$AP Rocky, who now has become a big name in hip hop. He introduced the world to the group last year with the Lord$ Never Worry mixtape. Now it's time for the members of the clique to shine as individuals. Starting with A$AP Ferg. Other than feature verses on A$AP Rocky's songs and his current hit song "Work", honestly, I haven't really heard a lot from Ferg. But I do know of him. What I also know is that his following of fans is growing by the minute. Much like how things began for A$AP Rocky in 2011. Well now the time has come for Ferg to step out of the groups shadow and do his solo thing. This is his debut album Trap Lord. Like I mentioned before I haven't heard any previous projects from him so I really didn't have any kinds of expectations going into this. I thought the album was average to decent at best. Content wise it's similar to what we're used to hearing from A$AP Rocky but done much more differently. On this album Ferg gives us your typical hood music but with a much more deeper, darker, grittier and menacing feel to it. It feels like the perfect album to play at night in your car riding through the city. Now of course, like many of the A$AP Mob members, he's not so good lyrically. But he can sure paint pictures in your head with what he does say. He's very comparable to various artists. He reminds me of a southern version (even though he's from Harlem) of Schoolboy Q with his dark and violent tales of the hood. His weird voice and oddball-like persona is kinda Chance The Rapper/Danny Brown-ish. Then his dreary and somewhat depressing sounding vocals when he's singing reminds me a lot of Kid Cudi. It seems what Ferg is trying to do is take the hood trap music that's so popular today and turn it into something more deep and introspective. I don't know if he accomplished it fully with this album but it's a definite good start. Now let me get to the stand out tracks. I didn't really have a favorite song on this album so I'll just point out the ones that stood out. The track "Hood Pope" was a pretty cool track. On here he talks about finding his purpose in bleak surroundings. This is one of many songs on here where he delivers those Kid Cudi-like R&B vocals. "Fuck Out My Face" was a dope track mostly because of the featured artists. B-Real, Onyx and Aston Matthews. All of which had god verses. In fact this song probably wouldn't have been all that if it wasn't for the people featured. Speaking of dope features, there was another one on the track "Lord". It features Bone Thugs-N-Harmony who thankfully brought that song more to life because again, had it had been another solo joint it probably wouldn't be that good. This was also one of my favorite beats on here. That's one thing I can say about Ferg, A$AP Rocky and the whole A$AP Mob is that they have a ear for good production. There's some pretty good beats on here. Not great but good. The last track "Cocaine Castle" maybe the deepest song on the album. This was a meandering ode to the dark side of the drug game. He talks about how everyone becomes involved and becomes addicts. From kids to grandmothers. Exposing the horrors of cocaine dealing. Something Harlem has seen a lot of in the past. "Fergivicious" had this eerie sounding trap beat that is a perfect example of what I said before in it being night time music. His flow meshed with this beat kinda took me back to the old days of Three 6 Mafia. Now on to my dislikes. I tried and tried to force myself to like the track "Shabba" but I just couldn't. Now I don't know if he really has Jamaican in him or not but his Jamaican accent here was bad. Kinda ruined the song for me. Even A$AP Rocky's verse which was bad couldn't do much to save this. I really don't understand why he chose to put "Work (remix)" on here instead of the original but it wasn't a good idea. First of all the placement of the track is bad. It completely slows down the momentum the album had. Then the line up of featured artists on the track wasn't too great either. Asking Schoolboy Q and A$AP Rocky to rap against the likes of French Montana and Trinidad James is like asking Trey Songz to keep and eye on your girlfriend while you're gone for the night. I prefer the original over the remix. Okay now...I seriously don't even know what to make of the track "4:20". I'm seriously on the fence about this. This was by far the weirdest and most bizarre song on the whole album. The track begins with this interlude of what sounds like Ferg and two girls in the middle of a threesome. A very strange threesome. Then the song begins and he's describing the sexual encounter telling the girls what he wants to see them do to each other. It's like he's playing the role of some perverted porn director or something. The song had this strange psychedelic and trippy sound. Again, I'm on the fence with this track. "Dump Dump" would have been a better song had it not been for the lazy, half-assed repetitive hook and y'all know how I feel about repetitive hooks. This is the hook: "I fucked your bitch nigga, I fucked your bitch/she sucked my dick nigga, she sucked my dick". Terrible. Just terrible. It sounds like a hook he stole from Lil B. Then the song was filled with many cringe worthy lines ("that coke make my dick numb she put it all in her glutes", "pop a pill in her asshole, put drugs in these bitches"). In short, this is probably the worst song on the album. Well overall, this was merely and average album. Decent production, poor lyrics but interesting concept which saves it. I give it a final grade of a C. I appreciate that A$AP Ferg is trying to do something different with the hood rap and/or trap rap. As apposed to sounding like other generic radio trap rappers. It's things like this that will keep Ferg and the whole A$AP Mob relevant in hip hop for a long while. However, I'd like to see him expand more with this sound as far as topics and content. But it's only his debut so he'll grow as an artist and do that. Hopefully he will. End.
Final Grade: C
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