This album was released on June 21st this year. I’ve been aware of Georgia Anne Muldrow’s existence for a couple years now, but I didn’t bother checking out any of her work until recently. Before listening to this latest solo album, I went back and listened to all her other work. She’s definitely not one of my favorite artists, but I do think she’s talented. I think her production is easily her greatest strength. I’ve never really been that impressed by her singing, but I think she has a decent voice. She rarely ever blows me away, but I think I usually like her albums to some extent. Some of them have been weak to me. I’ve never loved an album from her. I wouldn’t call any of her albums great. They’re usually just good. I think my favorite album from her is A Thoughtiverse Unmarred. Out of all her projects, I think Ms. One is my favorite, but that’s just an EP. The only one that I think was actually bad is The Blackhouse. There’s not a single song that I like from that album, but I’m personally just not into Electro music at all, so it’s not my cup of tea. I think the best song I’ve ever heard from her is the title track from her 2018 album, Overload. Her music is rarely that entertaining to me though. Anyway, this album in particular is a sequel to her 2010 album, Vweto, which was an instrumental Hip Hop record. That’s far from my favorite album of hers, but I did kind of enjoy it, so I was curious about this album. However, I have to be honest; if this wasn’t a Mello Music Group release, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered checking it out. Georgia Anne Muldrow isn’t an artist I get excited about personally. I heard good things about this project, so I was expecting it to at least be on par with her other recent work.

I actually ended up feeling almost the exact same way about this album as I did about the first installment in the Vweto series. It’s a good project, but certainly not a “must-listen.” As always, I’ll talk about the songs that I enjoyed before discussing the ones I didn’t care for. The album starts off with Almost Trendy, which is pretty goddamn good. I really like the percussion on this one. The beat has a similar atmosphere to that of the Spoken Word intro and outro by Jessica Care Moore on Nastradamus. That’s a good thing by the way. That album was obviously a dud, but I love her performances on that project. Those tracks were the best thing about the whole album. I’m getting off topic though. Anyway, as much as I like this track, it honestly lasts way too long. That’s the same issue that plagued the first Vweto project, and it unfortunately returns with this sequel. The majority of the songs on this album are way longer than they need to be. Almost Trendy would’ve been easier to sit through all the way to the end if there was someone rapping over it. It’s a good song, but it’s twice as long as it needs to be. For some reason I feel like Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire would sound great rapping over it. I think it’s because the beat kinda reminds me of The Cauldron. Anyway, I think the following song, Bass Attack Bap, is a step up from the opening track. It just feels more elaborate and fulfilling. However, it still feels too long. It’s dope though. I really love the prominent piano elements. The fourth song on the album is called Brokenfolks, and this is the first major highlight for me. This instrumental is fucking awesome, man. I love the melodic beat, and those bells sound fantastic. The whole track sounds kinda tense and emotional. I actually think it’s one of the best beats I’ve ever heard from Georgia Anne Muldrow. The only real complaint I have is the length. Just like with almost every other track, this shit is way too long. It did not need to be four and a half minutes. I still love it though. It’s dope af. The next song that I like is called Emo Blues, and, as the title suggests, it sounds very emotional and dramatic. It’s like the perfect backdrop for a heavy story from someone like Nas or maybe even Slug. The track is exactly 5 minutes in length, which is way too much. However, the production is so good that I didn’t even mind that much. It’s a really dope track. The following song is called Das Funk. It sounds like the perfect instrumental for artists like Black Star or Nolan the Ninja; it’s just a really cool traditional Hip Hop beat. It also kinda sounds like something I’d hear during a chase scene in a crime film. I was reminded of Freddie Gibbs’ Extradite when I listened to it, but this sounds way smoother than that beat. It’s a dope song. It’s followed by the next major highlight on the album for me, Gettin’ It. This beat is actually fucking awesome. I love how fucking weird it is. It kinda gives me the same feeling that Pete Rock’s production on Get Down by Torrae gave me. This sounds way more unorthodox and gritty than that beat though. Danny Brown would murder this beat. Thankfully, she kept this track relatively short. The loop is admittedly very repetitive, so it would’ve gotten old if she made it any longer. It’s definitely one of my favorite songs on the album though. It’s followed by Mary Lou’s Motherboard, which has another pretty weird beat. It feels more detailed and layered than a lot of the other tracks that come before it. It sounds really cold & robotic, yet melodic & smooth at the same time. It kinda sounds like El-P mixed with FlyLo. This is another one of the few tracks that has a decent length too. It’s really dope stuff. The next song I liked is called Something Fun. Once again, it sounds more detailed than a lot of the other tracks, especially the two that precede it. It’s not an amazing beat or anything, but I do like it to some extent. I like how woozy and electronic the production sounds. One thing that would’ve really made it much better would be if it was shortened. It should’ve been cut in half. I like the song though. It’s pretty good. I feel the same way about the following track, When the fOnk Radiates. The reversing instrumental sounds pretty cool. I feel like Clear Soul Forces would sound great over it. I really like the wonky synths that are panned to the left. Again, it’s way longer than it should be, but I still enjoy it. I’d actually probably say this is slightly better than the preceding track. Neither of them are anywhere close to being my favorites, but I do like them. The penultimate track, Wu Punk, is the last real highlight on the project for me. I love how melodic and heavy the production is. It kinda reminds me of the beat from ’93 ‘Til Infinity. It’s definitely one of the most engrossing & fulfilling beats on the whole album. I think it’s fantastic. Georgia raps up the album with Yoyo Ma Funk. When I saw the title, I was expecting the beat to sample Yo-Yo Ma. I don’t really think anyone has mastered the fusion of Classical music & Hip Hop, so I thought it’d be cool to hear an attempt from her. I was a bit let down when the song just turned out to be another Brainfeeder-type Jazztronica beat. With that said, it’s still a really good song, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s dope. Now I’ll discuss the handful of tracks I don’t really care for. The beat on Big Mama Africa Jam is a little dull to me. I just feel like she could’ve incorporated more elements to spice it up a bit. There’s not a lot going. It feels very repetitive; you pretty much know what to expect from the rest of the song after hearing the first 40 seconds. I think it’s a decent track, but I won’t be returning to it in the future. Track 5, Bronx Skates, is a bit weaker in my opinion. The funky sound just isn’t really that entertaining to me. I just picture disco balls in my head whenever I listen to it. It’s not my cup of tea. It’s tolerable though. It’s certainly not a terrible instrumental. It’s just not the kinda thing I’d ever have the desire to listen to again. It’s followed by CV Jam Number 2, which is another low point on the album for me. The beat is pretty strange. It sounds kinda glitchy to me. It was cool at first, but this is the longest track on the album, and the length really isn’t justified in my opinion. It gets old after about a minute and a half, but continues for three and a half more minutes. It’s just really mundane and longwinded to me. I think my least favorite track on the whole album is Nate Dogg’s Eulogy. The beat is funkier than a lot of the others on the album, but those squeaky synths are just really grating to me. Maybe if the song was shortened a bit I’d enjoy it more. It’s way too repetitive and longwinded for me to ever wanna hear it again though. The only other track is Old School fOnk. I think this track is a little better than the preceding one, but it’s still really simplistic and way too repetitive. It’s just the same loop repeating over and over for about three and a half minutes. Again, it’s not a terrible song. In fact, I don’t think any of the song’s on this project are really bad. Some of them are just a bit uninteresting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This album is pretty good. I have to admit that it’s actually better than I was expecting it to be. The album is long as hell, so I assumed it would be much harder to sit through than it actually was. I definitely don’t think it’s one of the best instrumental Hip Hop albums I’ve heard this year, but it is worth checking out if you typically like that kind of thing. Don’t be too discouraged by the length. You can skip to the next track if you’re not intrigued by the first thirty seconds of a song because none of them contain any substantial beat switches. I think I mentioned this before, but I feel the same way about this album as I did about the original installment. That one was shorter and more consistent, but I think this one has more extreme vicissitudes in terms of the actual song quality. I’m glad I didn’t sleep on this project because there’s some really good stuff here. Check it out.

Favorite Song: Wu Punk
Least Favorite Song: Nate Dogg’s Eulogy

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