My Gut Reaction: PRhyme - PRhyme 2 (March 16, 2018)

The duo PRhyme is made up of rapper Royce da 5’9” and producer DJ Premier. If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any number of years, I would think that you already knew that, especially since I had explained this back when I wrote about their self-titled first album. Hell, if you frequent any hip hop site on the Interweb, you should already know this fact. But as they ventured into the promotional cycle for their sophomore collaborative effort, PRhyme 2, the duo of Ryan Montgomery and Chris Martin threw out some interesting breadcrumbs regarding the freshman album, one of which I will proceed to use in an effort to fill out the following paragraphs.

First, some quick table-setting: Royce is a Detroit-based rapper who has been in the game for nearly two decades at this point, coming up around the same time as his friend-turned-superstar Eminem. His career has seen many ups and downs, thanks to label fuckery, irrational beefs (with the likes of Dr. Dre, Eminem, and Kanye West, strangely), and his own alcoholism, which he’s attempted to keep in check for quite a few years now. He is currently best known as a member of the crew Slaughterhouse (alongside fellow label castoffs Crooked I/KXNG CROOKED, Joell Ortiz, and the currently-retired Joe Budden), one-half of the duo Bad Meets Evil (with Eminem, whom he no longer has any issues with), and one-half of PRhyme. DJ Premier, meanwhile, is one of the most celebrated hip hop producers of all time, providing classic beats to many different (but typically East Coast-based) artists, including his late Gang Starr partner, Guru. Ryan and Chris first hooked up in the beginning stages of the former’s career, and have worked together sporadically ever since, at least until they formed PRhyme and released their debut album in 2014.

One thing I learned about the collaboration is that it wasn’t originally supposed to be just Royce and Premier: the plan was for all of Slaughterhouse to record an album exclusively with DJ Premier, and the other three guys turned him down. The fuck? I don’t know what else Budden had going on at the time, but walking away from the dude who helmed numerous Gang Starr classics sounded fucking nuts to me, even though I know I complain a lot about Preemo’s other production work, since a lot of it sounds uninspired and lazy. But the fact of the matter is that he’s a boom bap pioneer, and even my bullshit can’t take that title away from him. Even though his boys weren’t interested, Ryan stuck around, and the duo became PRhyme, with the ‘P’ standing for ‘Premier’ and the ‘R’ standing for ‘Really, motherfucker, you don’t understand how this works by now?’.

Royce and Preemo had envisioned what became the first PRhyme project as an experiment of sorts: while Royce obviously would write the rhymes, Preemo would limit himself to sampling only from the catalog of one composer, in an effort to challenge himself. For their first collaboration, Preemo dug through the works of Adrian Younge, an artist who has scored films and produced both instrumental albums and projects from the likes of Ghostface Killah and Souls of Mischief. Ryan focused on the rhymes, obviously, but to fill the void that the rest of Slaughterhouse had left, both men recruited guests whose work they enjoyed, all in an effort to present listeners with the mythical ideal of “real hip hop”. PRhyme was released in 2014, its nine tracks featuring cameos from Common, ScHoolboy Q, Jay Electronica, and Killer Mike, among others. Hell, even the other three members of Slaughterhouse popped in the once.

PRhyme 2, the conveniently-titled second volume in what is hopefully an ongoing series, swaps out Younge for Philadelphia-based composer/producer Antman Wonder in order to keep the experimental aspect of this collaboration fresh, but otherwise follows the same blueprint, with Royce’s verses offset by guests that they like. Admirably, there are no repeat performers from the first entry: PRhyme 2 incorporates features from rappers such as Dave East, Roc Marciano, and Rapsody, but also R&B assists from the likes of Novel and Cee-Lo Green. That last bit was my first red flag, as the first PRhyme only worked in one brief hook from Dwele, but was otherwise straight spitting.

The second concern that popped up was when I realized PRhyme 2 was seventeen tracks long. The first entry only contained nine songs, Preemo and Ryan keeping things lean and mean and trimming all the bullshit. (In 2015 they released a deluxe edition of the album with four additional songs, but one of those was a remix-slash-sequel, while another was just an extended version of a track they submitted for a soundtrack, so I tend to still just think of the “nine songs” thing.) Two of the seventeen are interludes, but that still leaves fifteen tracks, nearly twice as many as its predecessor, which opened up the very real possibility of filler. Both men also claimed that they invited guests based on how much they wanted to work with them and not because of any sales clout their names may hold, but it’s clear that PRhyme 2 was crafted by checking off very specific hip hop demographic boxes, as the guest list also includes names such as Big K.R.I.T. and 2 Chainz.

DJ Premier and Royce da 5’9” have been hitting the promotional circuit hard for PRhyme 2, even going so far as to promise that they will eventually release a deluxe edition of this project with additional songs, too. Don’t think I have any plans to write about that one, though. But without further ado, I know you two want to talk about PRhyme 2, so here we go.

1. INTERLUDE 1 (SALUTE)

During which Preemo helpfully explains why Adrian Younge isn’t a part of PRhyme 2, but thanks the man for his influence all the same. That was nice of him.

2. BLACK HISTORY

Remember when Bumpy Knuckles and DJ Premier hooked up for the album Kolexxxion, and you found out that a handful of the tracks presented had been previously released elsewhere? Yeah, same with “Black History”, which first appeared on the Royce mixtape Tabernacle: Trust the Shooter (or just Trust the Shooter, depending on where you get your free mixtapes from), which was intended to promote his then-forthcoming full-length Layers. Everything on here is exactly the same, save for Preemo’s vocal contribution (which originally announced the existence of PRhyme 2 as more than just a hip hop nerd’s pipe dream, but has since been replaced with generic “we’re here”-type platitudes) and the track’s length (it’s now a little bit longer, but there are no new bars: instead, Preemo inserts some more scratching). But putting all that aside, “Black History” is kind of fire: Ryan devotes the first verse to an abridged autobiography, while the second describes Preemo’s own career (and, briefly, that of the late Guru). Our host’s verbal gymnastics are as nimble as ever, and over the two distinct instrumentals Preemo implements here, Ryan goes in with the confidence of a man who hasn’t had to prove shit to anyone for quite some time. (The D.I.T.C. bars were especially clever, if a bit pandering to heads such as myself.) It’s not the best DJ Premier beat, but it works as a more-than-suitable intro to the project. It’s just weird that we’d already heard this shit two years ago.

3. 1 OF THE HARDEST

Ryan sounds as focused as ever, but he stumbles on “1 Of The Hardest” because of Preemo’s instrumental, which loops up some of Antman Wonder’s fuzzy guitars for what ends up resembling a piss-poor impersonation of Kanye West’s work on Jay-Z’s “The Takeover”, as though Preem believed he was too good of a student to pay attention in class. And yes, I realize that last sentence makes it seem as though I honestly believe DJ Premier to be inferior to Kanye West: you and I both know that isn’t the case at all. But Preemo does sound off his game on here, only recovering slightly with some end-of-the-track scratching. Royce deserved better for his shit-talking.

4. ERA (FEAT. DAVE EAST)

The first single from PRhyme 2 signaled a shift in sound for the project, as there is nothing about “Era”, save maybe the scratching, that confirmed the involvement of DJ Premier in the least fucking bit (ignore the fact that the video dropped the same day as the song for that last sentence to work for you), and it adjusted expectations accordingly. At least it did for me. Preemo’s weird boom-trap hybrid isn’t bad at all, but I wouldn’t want to hear an entire album’s worth of this shit. Anyway, Ryan, a rapper who does hail from another goddamn era, raps circles around invited guest Dave East, a guy who I’m sure is cool in person, but his shruggable delivery and his insistence on working with Chris Brown have left me refusing to give him a fair shot, This is fine, as PRhyme 2 is rightfully The Royce da 5’9” Variety Hour, but it does leave me wondering why East was even kept on the final cut in the first place. But I digress.

5. RESPECT MY GUN (FEAT. ROC MARCIANO)

So far, Preemo’s beats on PRhyme 2 aren’t as hard-hitting or melodic as his work on the first PRhyme (let alone on any Gang Starr album, or Group Home’s Livin’ Proof, or any of his classic productions, but those are unfair comparisons, I know). His instrumental for “Respect My Gun” is only okay-ish: weirdly, it only started growing on me when guest star Roc Marciano started rapping, and he doesn’t even sound that good, his typical crime boasts and shit handicapped by his “whatever” apathetic delivery.  (I know, I know, of course I would write that. Get over it, people: your rhyming hero isn’t the greatest of all time.) Ryan doesn’t fare much better, though, and the shift from his calmer-by-comparison verses to his shouting during the hook is jarring as all hell. The fuck did I just subject myself to?

6. W.O.W. (WITH OUT WARNING) (FEAT. YELAWOLF)

Yelawolf? Are you fucking kidding me? Some variation of those two questions popped into my head the moment I read Preemo’s leaked tracklisting, complete with guest features, for PRhyme 2. But it turns out that Yela does pretty well for himself on “W.O.W. (With Out Warning)”, a song title I absolutely hate for obvious grammatical reasons: he kicks off the track and sounds right at home over DJ Premier boom bap that approaches the dramatic intensity of his best production work. Ryan is also no slouch: he delivers two energetic verses chock-full of boasts-n-bullshit before ceding the floor to an extended vocal sample lifted from a verse from the late Big L, one that will make you wish the man were still with us, as he would have absolutely been welcomed to the PRhyme studio sessions. Sigh. Surprisingly not bad, though.

7. SUNFLOWER SEEDS (FEAT. NOVEL & SUMMER OF ’96)

Preemo’s instrumental for “Sunflower Seeds” is deceptively simple: it’s a loop that never really changes, and yet it still manages to worm its way into your brain. So it’s too bad that the rest of the track doesn’t quite hold up. Ryan’s verses are fairly banal, and his chorus is very much meh: you can probably figure out what he says during the chorus without even turning this shit on merely by reading the song title. The vocals from guest Novel are lumped together toward the end of the track as an afterthought: he sounds decent enough, but it was still an unnecessary addition. Had the guest been woven into the fabric of “Sunflower Seeds”, he may have helped offset Royce’s lackadaisical flow, but as it stands, this was a disappointment.

8. STREETS AT NIGHT

There are a few artistic choices on PRhyme 2 that I question, one of which is our host choosing to ape the chorus from A Flock of Seagulls’ “I Ran” for “Streets At Night”, a track that otherwise worked for me. Preemo selects one of Antman Wonder’s more 1980’s-sounding compositions to chop up and mold into an instrumental that truly could double as the score of a night driving sequence in a gritty crime flick, and Ryan’s boasts-n-bullshit flow effortlessly over it, even though he approaches Game-like levels of pop cultural appreciation with some of those name drops (Kawhi Leonard? Okay, sure, whatever). Overall, I’m not mad at this.

9. ROCK IT

The second single released from PRhyme 2 seems to have been written with me expressly in mind, as the chorus very deliberately plays the A Tribe Called Quest card. Which makes this next bit kind of weird on my part: even though I had listened to “Era” the moment it dropped, the first time I played “Rock It” was while I was writing this paragraph, and for whatever reason I had expected some sort of pseudo-Rick Rubin-esque horseshit, but I should have known better, as Preemo’s instrumental doesn’t stray far from the melodic boom bap he’s long since mastered. That chorus is pretty stupid, though, and although Ryan sounds fine on “Rock It”, he somehow manages to say less than nothing, so don’t come to this one expecting depth. The tempo was slower than I had expected, but this still wasn’t bad.

10. LOVED ONES (FEAT. PREEMO)

PRhyme 2 seems to be a love letter to the hip hop I prefer: Royce kicks off “Loved Ones” by reciting the hook from my favorite Mobb Deep track, “Eye For An Eye (Your Beef Is Mine)”, and Preemo approaches MF DOOM’s production style with the instrumental, which literally sounds like the music from the title sequence of a lost Hanna-Barbera cartoon but obviously isn’t. “Loved Ones” actually is about something, sort of: Ryan learns that his wife has discovered his cheating ways, with recent Grammy nominee Rapsody playing the role of the spouse. I did enjoy how our host’s performance seemed to grow more panicked with each passing bar, And Rapsody sounded okay (and nothing more), but I don’t think I’ll ever need to hear this one again regardless: an instrumental would be cool, I suppose.

11. MY CALLING

A quickie whose two verses fly by, aided by a hook that should be goofy, but grew on me the second time our host decided to bring it around. I quite liked Preemo’s beat: this is still melodic boom bap without question, but the drum sample used is different (and fuzzier) than what you’d hear on, say, a Jeru the Damaja track, and Preem works around his self-imposed restriction masterfully. This was just enjoyable, folks.

12. MADE MAN (FEAT. BIG K.R.I.T. & DENAUN PORTER)

A complete misstep on Royce and Premier’s part. “Made Man” operates within an entirely different environment than the rest of PRhyme 2 thus far, one that only truly suits guest star Big K.R.I.T., whose contribution was okay, but not memorable. (I prefer him over actual boom bap that clashes with his country roots.) Ryan does his damnedest, but gets lost in the shuffle, while the other invited guest, Denaun “Kon Artis” Porter, who normally just produces shit these days, croons on the hook in an undeniably flat manner. Why Mr. Porter was invited to these studio sessions I’ll never understand, but while he isn’t the worst aspect of “Made Men”, he’s certainly in the running. Overall: meh.

13. RELATIONSHIPS (SKIT)

Preemo sets up the next track, as though PRhyme 2 were a concept album where this was really necessary. Seriously, bro, you haven’t popped up like this since the intro: what was the purpose of this, exactly? Were you afraid the audience wouldn’t “get” it?

14. FLIRT (FEAT. 2 CHAINZ)

When I first heard about the 2 Chainz feature on PRhyme 2 (during a radio interview, where Preemo was pressured by I don’t remember who to reveal at least one tidbit about the album he hadn’t yet revealed elsewhere, he opted for chatting up this cameo, since Chainz had inadvertently revealed it on his own Instagram account previously), I expressed concern on Twitter, but I was convinced that it could be enjoyable, as Tity Boi can be entertaining as shit in bursts, but I had never heard him over any boom bap. Well, “Flirt” is a song that officially exists. The third single from the project, “Flirt” works around one of Preemo’s more whimsical creations, one that he definitely would have sold off to the likes of Paula Perry or Journalist or Teflon or another underground ‘remember them?’ back in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s back when everyone seemed to have a DJ Premier beat on their albums for some fucking reason (I assume Preemo was trying to pay off a debt?). The subject matter is an attempt to keep things as light as the instrumental, but given the current environment, where #TimesUp and #metoo are both gaining traction (as they should), writing a song about how women suck at flirting is a tricky proposition, and the way Ryan goes about it fails the test. I know, I know, you two are going to try to convince me that this song was supposed to be funny: it very much fucking isn’t. And the chorus apes Camp Lo’s “Luchini (This Is It)” for some goddamn reason, and it’s awful. Preemo himself jumps into the fray with a callback to his vocal cameo on the first album’s “U Looz”, except he just adds to the overall misogynistic bent of the track, which was a weird choice. “But what about 2 Chainz?”, you two will inevitably ask. Here’s the thing: he sounds okay. Not good, and not terrible, just… okay. Hopefully he’ll get another shot at a beat such as this in the future, because “Flirt” kind of sucked.

15. EVERYDAY STRUGGLE (FEAT. CHAVIS CHANDLER)

How long before his Slaughterhouse teammate Joe Budden was let go from Complex’s Everyday Struggle did Ryan and Preemo record this track? Anyway, I found this to be pretty terrible, from the beat on down to the bars, although I did find our host’s minor calling-out of Lord Jamar interesting.

16. DO YA THING

Not bad, although Royce’s flow sounds so much like Kendrick Lamar’s on here for some reason (this is not the norm, so I have to believe he did this intentionally?) that I’m certain you could play this blindly for a K-Dot stan and they’d fall for your deception. Preemo’s work with the beat brings out a slower-paced meditative stance, one that Ryan mirrors to deliver an attempt at some positive bars, albeit the type that still involve weapons because shut up, that’s why. The last Royce da 5’9” project I’ve reviewed as of this writing was Success Is Certain: “Do Ya Thing” could have slid onto that project easily. Not my favorite Royce and Preemo collaboration, but it’s pleasant, and it helps offset the garbage I’ve had to sit through for a few tracks now.

17. GOTTA LOVE IT (FEAT.CEE-LO GREEN & BRADY WATT)

These days, I’m very wary of any opportunity granted to date rape apologist Cee-Lo Green to perform: that’s likely why I’ll never finish reviewing Goodie Mob’s catalog. But if we look at it from a purely musical standpoint, I’d still be cautious inviting Cee-Lo to contribute: have we already forgotten Slaughterhouse’s aural equivalent of being waterboarded, “My Life”? And the fact that this motherfucker turns in a chorus with meta commentary about its alleged earworminess is frustrating as hell. As for the rest of “Gotta Love It”, Preemo gives Royce an instrumental with no drum work (until the very end), allowing the music to breathe, and our host shouts out a bunch of his Detroit peers, most of whom aren’t on PRhyme or PRhyme 2 but would be welcomed. Not Big Sean, though. Ignoring the presence of the guest, “Gotta Love It” serves as a pretty effective nightcap, leaving the listener with a positive feeling, which will likely cause you two to gloss over the crap on this album, let’s be real. But that’s alright: it’s my job to remind you.

THE LAST WORD: Just as I feared, PRhyme 2 is too fucking long. For whatever reason, DJ Premier felt that this project needed to contain as many of his ideas as possible, and apparently it could have been even longer, which isn’t what anybody needs. Production-wise, there are some joints on here that bang, but a great majority of PRhyme 2 features beats that are merely okay-to-decent, although they may cause you to want to look up Antman Wonder’s Soundcloud page and listen to the source material, so to that end, Preemo was successful enough. For his part, Royce da 5’9” raps his ass off as much as he possibly can: his pen has only grown more skilled over the past two decades, and he still sounds fairly hungry behind the mic, if not exactly starving. When Preemo provides some heat, such as on “Rock It” or “My Calling”, the combination is unstoppable, if not comparable to their early (and possibly greatest) collaboration, the classic “Boom”. Hell, even when the beats are only alright, such as on “Streets At Night”, “Era”, or “W.O.W. (With Out Warning)”, Ryan still manages to impress. But when the producer stumbles behind the boards, Ryan isn’t able to pick up the slack, and his performance suffers. If PRhyme 2 were half the length, these shortcomings would be far easier to overcome, but when you sit through several tracks’ worth of meh in a row, it’s harder to overlook what could have been. Oh well. The best songs on here are still fire, though, and I absolutely look forward to Chris and Martin’s continuing series of collaboration albums for the hip hop fans they obviously are: maybe next time just invite some rappers that fit the criteria?

-Max

RELATED POSTS:

You can find a review for the other PRhyme album here, and I’ll also provide links to further your deep-dives into the respective catalogs of Royce da 5’9” and DJ Premier, because I’m a nice guy.