History has shown, since the 90's, a deal with Bad Boy could guarantee you a 90% chance at stardom. Courtesy of Diddy, the list of notable names that caught a glimpse of stardom are endless. Most notably Biggie. Then there's Craig Mack, Faith Evans, Mase, The LOX, Black Rob, G. Dep, Yung Joc, Cassie and so on. Most recently the signing of French Montana and Machine Gun Kelly have made them popular names as well. Well the next Bad Boy artist up that may catch that same glimpse of stardom is Los. As a native of Baltimore myself, it was only right that I review this latest project from Los who of course is from Baltimore as well. So yeah, there might be a bit of hometown bias in this review. Now this is my first time hearing a full project from him. Before it was just some freestyles and a few featured verses that I heard. Becoming King for the most part is pretty decent. One of my biggest fears for a Baltimore rapper that finally made it big was if their music would stick to the stereotype that's labeled with the city. That's being a crime infested, drug ridden, and overall dangerous city which is largely depicted in the popular show The Wire. Fortunately, Los doesn't do that. However, he does stick to today's popular and very typical mainstream sound. Which isn't really bad because it will get him over with listeners. The production was pretty good to say the least. Majority of the beats are all mainstream sounding as I stated before. Which again isn't bad considering he has a major deal so that sound is gonna be there. Lyrically he's average. There's are times where I was impressed and there were times where I wasn't. He has delivery and charisma but his flow and lyrics sound like a bunch of other rappers on a number of songs on this tape. There's nothing really unique about his voice or lyrics. Well here's the songs that stood out for me. The second track "Sky Is The Limit" was pretty dope. He channels his inner Biggie here by using the same sample and hook from Biggie's 1997 hit of the same name. I'm willing to bet Diddy had something to do with that. I think overall my favorite song was definitely "Pay Up". It was a hook-less song and the most lyrically dope song on the whole tape. One for the play list for sure. "Disappointed" was cool and funny at the same time. The humor comes from the hook provided by Diddy. I always laugh whenever Diddy raps with that cocky, arrogant "I-have-this-and-you-don't" attitude. But that's just who Puff is. Despite a very poor guest verse from Ludacris the song overall was cool. "Dope" features Pusha T and Yo Gotti and is a definite trunk banger for the whip. This should certainly be a favorite for many. "Burn Slow" was okay but man I thought I would never see the day where it would sound like Wiz Khalifa out-did someone on their own song but it happened. Not saying Los was bad on it but Wiz brought more energy to the track. Speaking of Wiz, he's also featured on the track "Weak" which also features Cassie as well. After a few listens the beat for this grew on me and now I like it. Another trunk banger as well. "Nightmares Of Being Broke" is the most relaxed song on the tape. It's a huge change of pace from the rest of the tracks but a pretty good song nonetheless. Now here are my negatives. I mentioned before Los mixes his flow up a lot and it sounds like various other artists. On "My Biz" he sounds like a combination of Wale and Big Sean (especially towards the end when he's kinda "rap-talking" over the beat). In fact he sounds like Big Sean on majority of the songs on this tape ("O.D." was another example of one). The song was okay but the flow is what made me have a dislike for it somewhat. He samples LL Cool J's classic hit "Doin' It" for the track "Doing You Well". It's on this track where he delivers a J. Cole-like flow for the ladies. Didn't like that too much but the sample was okay. Now I did mention that I did like "Dope" but he had a A$AP Rocky-like flow on that which I didn't like after first listen. It gets better. On "Why You Mad" he gets his Future on with the auto-tune. It sounds like a very poor attempt at a radio/club hit. Even on this he used Big Sean's ad-libs ("hold up", "roll up" etc.). The auto-tune madness continues on "Hard Life" where it sounds like he's literally trying to sing. Bad idea. The parts where he was rapping he sounded like Wale again. Although sounding a bit like Wale I could probably live with because it just might be both of their Maryland/DC accents that sound the same. Well in conclusion, this mixtape was just decent. The pros and cons were 50/50. I enjoyed the production the most if anything. I give it a final grade of a C+. I like Los. I'm happy to see him put my city on the map and I'll continue to support him. I think he has the sound, charisma and overall talent to make it big. I just feel like he may need to find a identity with his flow and lyrics because it sounds like he's jacking flows from everybody and that's not good. He's gonna have to grow out of that if he really wants to "become king". End.
Final Grade: C+
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