Don’t sleep on this collaborative instrumental album from Haz Solo & Jansport J. It was released on July 8th this year. I wasn’t familiar with Haz Solo before I decided to check this project out. I’m really just here for Jansport J. If you’ve been keeping up with this blog, you’re probably familiar with him at this point. He’s dropped a project every single month this year, and all of the ones that I’ve heard have been good. I’m not exactly sure which one is my favorite right now. It’s a three-way tie between this one, heavylight., and sayless. Honestly, I might go with this one just because I think it’s the shortest. I don’t know.

Since there aren’t any tracks that I didn’t actually like, I’ll just talk about the whole album in the proper order of the tracklist. It starts off with the title track as the intro, which is one of my favorite songs. It’s only 32 seconds long, but it’s great. My favorite aspect of the whole song is probably the inclusion of the Ja Rule sample. They used the audio of Ja Rule saying “ARE YOU READYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? …I guess not…” and it’s amazing. The beat itself kinda sounds like a more complexed version of a Metal Fingers beat. It also kinda reminds me of something PARTY SUPPLIES would produce. It’s dope af. I don’t really have much to say about the following track, RUNNIN’. It’s kind of a strange instrumental, but I think it’s great. I’d really like to hear someone actually rap over it because it’s very cool. The following song, WHOA, might be my least favorite track. I haven’t decided yet. I do like it though. It’s definitely a good beat. It’s more melodic than the preceding track, but it feels a bit more simplistic to me for some reason. It also doesn’t help that it just so happens to be the longest track on the album. It’s still less than two minutes in length, but it feels a bit long-winded in comparison to the others. The outro was pretty dope though. That was a nice change of pace. POSSE CUT definitely lives up to its title because as I listen to it I can just imagine a bunch of different rappers hopping on it. Blu would sound perfect over it in my opinion. It’s a great beat. The following track, BE A MENACE, is another one of my favorites. It sounds more melodic than most of the other beats. It’s also a bit heavier, and the bass seems stronger. It’s got a perfect length too. It gives you no time at all to get bored. The next track is kinda strange. I like the beat, but I was distracted from it by the sampled conversation. I don’t know who that is speaking, but he’s basically talking about how too many black men aspire to be in the NBA instead of seeking other professions. Again, it kinda steals my attention from the actual beat in the background. I still enjoyed the song though. COMMAND + S is another interesting track. The beat just sounds a lot richer to me than most of the others. It sounds like an instrumental from a vintage Pop/R&B song. It’s dope though. I definitely fuck with it. The following track, TURNSTYLE, is a pretty dope beat, but it sounds like the kind of song that’d be more enjoyable for me if someone was actually rapping over it. The way it’s structured makes it sound like it’d be really easy for someone to make a more fleshed out song with it. DREAMY is a pretty cool song, but it’s definitely a low point on the album for me. Nothing about it really stands out as being particularly bad. It just doesn’t captivate me as much as a lot of the other tracks. However, it does sound a lot more vibrant and lighthearted than most of them. CALCULATED CREPES is a very repetitive & simplistic instrumental, but I didn’t mind at all because the loop itself is smooth as hell. The percussion also seems to hit a little harder than that of the other songs to me. FOR WHATEVA sounds really warm and cheerful to me. It has kind of a celebratory, yet reflective atmosphere. It sounds like the background music for a commencement speech. I guess it wouldn’t make sense for their to be music playing during a speech. The song is dope though. I really like it. The penultimate track, OUTTA TIME, is another one of my favorites. It makes me think of Christmas for some reason. It just sounds really warm and comforting, much like the preceding song. I love it. It’s dope af. The final song on the album, BONUS ROUND, is unfortunately a little underwhelming to me, especially compared to the previous song. I still like it though. It sounds louder than the other songs. It’s like it has a different EQ setting than the other tracks. The beat itself is cool. It just doesn’t stand out much from the tracklist. It’s good though. I do like it. 🙂

This album is great. However, I do have to admit that I don’t really think it sounds that different from the other Jansport J projects I’ve heard this year. I don’t have much of an idea of what Haz Solo added to it, or what his solo work sounds like. To me this might as well just be another solo Jansport J beat tape. If nobody told me there was another artist involved I’d think nothing of it. That’s not really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things I suppose. I just think it’s kind of unfortunate for Haz Solo in this case. I’ll check out more of his own work though. If this project is any indication he’s clearly a talented producer. Pretty much everything I said in my previous Jansport J review applies to this one. It’s just a bunch of really chill lo-fi music. If you’re into those weeb beats on YouTube you’ll probably dig this. I really love Jansport J’s stuff, and it’s impressive how prolific he’s been this year. He’s released hours of music this year alone, so there’s no shortage of material. I haven’t heard a single beat from him this year that I didn’t think was at least good. Nothing on this album really surprised me or caught me off guard. He just gave me what I know and love him for. This shit is dope. Check it out.

Favorite Song: BE A MENACE
Least Favorite Song: WHOA

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