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Saturday 13 April 2013

Smooth Jezza - Momoirs Of A Blazer (LP Review)




review 1
Lyical Complexity 9/10 Jezza seems to flip comfortably between rollin hip hop style and a much sharper grime vibe
Content 8/10 lots of nice guest spots, great selection of tempos and styles, always a fan of "concept albums" but jezza manages to keep it all interesting and flowing. Reppin north east style heavily which is what it should be about, geordie rap sounds good... haters gonna hate
Originality 7/10 some popular themes but handled with Jezza's own style
Production 6/10 great beats but volume drops between certain tracks, suggests needed a final master done. Jezza's vocal sounds abit too raw on some and could have benefited from a bit more production, otherwise spot on, nice interesting sounds, good selection of producers
Style 9/10 always been a fan of Jezza's style and this epic tracklist gives him enough time to showcase his different flavas
fav tracks
play d flute like
dubtronic (obviously haha)
DCCD
Foreign Shiz
North East Parties
Radio


review 2
As a rapper, Smooth Jezza is all things to all men. For example in Slow rapz, the line “So far things were irrelevant like taxing pasties, so fat cats can laugh at us from heights like mike Ashley” conjures images of Ashley downing a pint in the stand at St James with his Toon top on, cause that’s what Geordie's do; right? Nobody, and I mean nobody can spit it like Smooth Jezza. He has a broad range of experience to draw from and has a lyrical prowess that is unique; which is why he stands out from the crowd. However, here comes the but.
Unfortunately, Memoirs of a blazer has tried to please all the people all of the time. Weighing in at 34 tracks, it feels to me more like an incomplete Click album mixed in to a solo project; and it doesn’t work. From the heart, I honestly believe it would have been better to drop the Click tracks as an EP and done a separate Smooth Jezza project. The pace, and quality of track production, as you listen to Memoirs of a blazer is too inconsistent to make it a really memorable mixtape. Don’t get me wrong, there are some blistering tracks on there! 7 were cranked up; Play d flute like, All wrecked, Clique Smooth edition, Jezz spit grime, All night, Oldskool remix (twice) & Radio. But, that’s only 1 more than I skipped. In conclusion, it touches on the sublime plenty of times, but the tracks that let it down pull it back to an average project.
lyrical complexity 8
content 6
originality 4
production 5
style 4

review 3
Lyrics 8/10 a whole Mixtape of double time can sometimes start being hard to listen to.
Content 6/10 over 30 tracks is way to many in this day and age people don't have near 2 hours to sit and listen through whole thing, shorten it down so it's easier to listen to and also quicker to get to your favourite parts. But that's isn't taking anything away from the lyrics and beats, and also the features on there.
Originality 10 jez has a great mind for what works on track few voice change ups, aswell as some singy parts his concepts are solid if I was to nit pick tho (to much green)
Production 6 again this is due to the amount of tracks on there and you can tell its been mixed and mastered in different places which is problem when you have multiple people working on the sound of your music without given input to each other the Mixtape suffers has volume wise it's up and down some tracks also need to boost Jezza lyrics in a few tracks aswell as a boost to some of the beats on there, a lot seem just mixed and not mastered.
Style 9 with a personality and swagger which you pick up on from the get go Jezza is an easy choice when picking who you wanna listen to and watch live.