When you think of west coast hip hop what areas do you think of? Obviously Los Angeles, Compton, Long Beach, Oakland/San Francisco (Bay Area for short), maybe even San Diego. Mostly cities in California right? Well now the west is starting to make noise in other western states besides Cali. Here to put Las Vegas on the hip hop map is Dizzy Wright. Most know of Dizzy through his ties with Hopsin and Funk Volume. This year he got a bit more recognition as he was a member of this year's XXL freshman class. For good reason too. I first caught on to him last year after listening to his debut digital album Smoke Out Conversations. A average to okay album at best. To me he seemed like an artist that will definitely grow well in hip hop and who's music will get better and better with each release. Well now here's the latest one. His sixth mixtape The Golden Age. Like I said I was curious to listen to this tape to see if there was any change or growth from last year and previous years before that. Looks like there is a bit of change. This tape definitely is an upgrade from his last project. Better production, better topics, better lyrics and even better guest features outside of Funk Volume. One unique thing about Dizzy is how versatile his flow is. He gives you many different flows on this tape. He gives you fast paced flows on trap beats, some calm mellow flows on those psychedelic and trippy beats and even some normal lyrical spitting on throwback boom bap styled beats. In short, this tape is basically a mixed bag of everything. There is a track on here for every person to enjoy or to at least relate to. To add to that, unlike his Funk Volume comrades, he has a mainstream sound that should gain him popularity among that audience quick. Well now with that said, some notables tracks. Well first off let me point out one major issue. The length of this mixtape. It was incredibly long. 22 tracks. I know it's just a mixtape and some mixtapes tend to be long but this was killing me. I don't like super long projects like this. He could have easily split this tape in half and made two different mixtapes. Okay now back to the notable tracks. First track that caught my attention was "Welcome Home". It was a song dedicated to his father after he returned home from prison. What I liked the most was the beat and hook. It had this old school boom bap beat with samples from DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince's "Summertime". The hook was well done by Arima Ederra as she takes the hook from Janet Jackson's classic hit "That's The Way Love Goes" and makes it more modern. I like that song. He links up with Logic and Pro Era member Kirk Knight for the track "Untouchable". Some dope lyrics we're being dropped here from all three. Yet again another boom bap styled beat with DJ Premier like record scratches on the hook. Kudos to DJ Hoppa for that one. The were a few songs with the trap rap sound that I did enjoy. "Step Yo Game Up" was one of them. This song has this high energy trap styled beat produced by Kato. Definitely the most energized track on the whole tape. While Jarren Benton dropped a crazy verse I wasn't feeling Tory Lanez verse like that. But the song was still dope. Another one was "Bout That Life". Now this one had a more calmer trap styled beat. The song was cool but I kinda wanted more from Hopsin on that track. I didn't like the whole low toned voice thing he was doing. But that still was another cool track. "Progression", "Still Movin" and "Brodee Bro" were also pretty cool songs with the same sound. "The Perspective" is about a topic that I've been waiting for someone to touch on. Thirsty people on the internet. Namely Instagram. He goes on talking about how girls do the most for attention on there and how the fellas feed into it every time. That track had to grow on me a little but it's cool. "Maintain" features Joey Bada$$ and because of that you know it's yet again another boom bap styled track. In fact it sound like the song belongs to Joey more than it does to Dizzy. Dope track though. Now on to my not so notable tracks. "Tellem My Name" could have been something but it was ruined by a terrible hook. Which was nothing but Dizzy spelling out his name over and over. Then the hook lasted so long that there's barely any actual rapping on it. Didn't like it. "B.T.T." (stands for Bounce Them Titties) had a fun and catchy beat, but again, another bad hook. It sounded so awkward that I can't even describe it. Then this song by far had the worst lyrics on the whole album. A waste of a good beat. "Fashion" could have a been a better song. In fact it could grow on me, but the thing is no one on the track really talked about well...fashion. The song features merely average verses from Honey Cocaine and Kid Ink. They didn't make things any better. The song was nothing but them talking about random stuff. Way to stay on topic. Another song that had the potential to be something better was the second track "The Flavor". Funk Volume member SwizZz is featured here and the way that he raps this song should have had way more energy. It was too laid back. Dizzy probably should have solo'ed this one and put SwizZz on a more deserving track like "Step Yo Game Up". Again, my biggest issue overall was the length of this project. Shorter mixtapes next time Dizzy. In closing, I thought this was a slightly, slightly above average mixtape. Definitely better than his last project though. I give it a final grade of a C+. I mentioned before how this mixtape has so many different sounds and styles coming from Dizzy. That kind of presents a problem for me. I like Dizzy Wright and I truly believe he has star potential. But I feel like he still trying to find his hip hop gimmick or identity. I think he's almost there but he just gotta keep exploring sounds until he finds it. I know he will. End.
Final Grade: C+
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