Tardy Album Review | Jodi.10k – Time Will Tell

This album was released on July 9th this year. Jodi.10k is another member of the popular experimental lo-fi Hip Hop group, [sLUms]. He’s one of the least popular members. I think the only member less popular than him is Booliemane, whose work I frankly haven’t heard enough of to understand why. Jodi.10k is an interesting case though. His first album, Good Intentions, came out in 2015, and I actually thought it was pretty great. This was back when he was performing under the name “Jazz Jodi.” I thought the production was great, and Jodi seemed like a fairly competent rapper. Then, in 2017, he released Importance of Pictures, which was nowhere near as good. There are a handful of songs from that project that I like, but none that I love. I don’t know what happened. I guess it’s an okay enough album, but Jodi himself was just so uninteresting on it. His flow was boring, his lyricism was generic as hell, and his lazy delivery was sleep inducing. It was like everything I liked about him disappeared. I had to go back to Good Intentions to make sure I wasn’t tripping when I first heard it because that second project made me forget why I liked him so much at first. Honestly, I think the reason it was so good was mainly because of the production. I really love a lot of those beats. Jodi himself kinda reminds me of Isaiah Rashad, except worse. The way he performs and delivers his lines is similar to me. It seems like he tries to go for a similarly laidback, mellow atmosphere with a lot of his music. My favorite song from him is called Rick James. I think that song’s awesome. He truthfully hasn’t ever been that great of a lyricist, but he at least held my attention on the first project. I’m not sure how I’m gonna feel about this latest album in particular. I’m hoping it’s an improvement over the last one, but I’m not gonna hold my breath. He’s actually about to release yet another album on the first day of the decade. I don’t think it has a title yet, but he dropped the first couple singles fairly recently. I hope this album gives me a reason to look forward to that one. Oh, by the way, one thing I wanna make sure I mention is the cover art. I think Jodi.10k always has really great cover art, and this one in particular is one of my favorite album covers of the year. It’s really nice. Shoutout to him for that. I appreciate shit like that.

After listening to the full project, I was in utter disbelief. This is genuinely the worst album I’ve heard all year. Well, let me rephrase that; this is the worst album I’ve heard that was released in the year 2019. To be fair, I typically go out of my way to avoid albums that I know I’ll hate, so I’m sure there are worse projects than this. That 93PUNX album is probably worse. However, it’s probably even worse that I was expecting this to be somewhat enjoyable, and it ended up being so shockingly terrible. As you probably could’ve guessed, I didn’t enjoy a single song from this album. I’m just gonna get this outta the way; I’ll talk about every song in the proper order of the tracklist. It starts off with a reprise of a song called LEAVES.

I actually have no idea why it’s labeled as a reprise because it doesn’t seem to be any different from the version in the music video above. If the two versions are legitimately different then the variations are very minimal. The songs are virtually identical sonically. I think it’s one of the most tolerable songs on the album, but it’s still pretty bad in my opinion. The production is alright I suppose, but Jodi’s vocals all over this song sound awful. His singing is so bad. That’s gonna be a recurring complaint in this review because he sings a lot on this project, and it’s never good. He eventually spits a verse after about one minute. It’s nice to get a break from the bad singing, but then I’m just assaulted with some of the most uninteresting, boring rapping that I’ve heard all year. Absolutely nothing about this song stands out in a good way. I think it’s wack. It’s followed by one of many severe low-points on the album, CHUCK.

I actually watched the music video for this song before checking out the full album. Since it was released on December 3rd I assumed it was another single for his upcoming album, scheduled to release on January 1st. This shit is really fucking bad though. The production fucking sucks, and on this track Jodi proves to be one of the most uninspiring, ignorable rappers I’ve heard in a long ass time. He makes King Carter look like a musical genius. His flow is generic as hell and super basic. This is like if one of those random A$AP dudes that nobody gives a fuck about tried to make a shitty lo-fi Hip Hop song. This song is wack af. The third track is called VEGAN.

The production on this song is actually pretty interesting. The tempo of the sample has clearly been tampered with, and it makes the instruments sound really uh… scattered? I don’t know if that makes sense. It makes them sound really buzzy. I’m not sure how to explain it. If you slow a video down enough it has the same effect on the audio; it sounds like a bunch of marbles falling and hitting the ground at once. It sounded pretty cool at first, but once the beat drops and Jodi starts rapping it just gets really distorted and unpleasant. I stopped enjoying it at that point personally. It honestly just sounds like my headphones are broken. It makes it difficult for me to focus on the lyrics, but that might be for the best because what I can actually make out is really bad.

Hate the cuts up on her wrist, but she not suicidal
Just came through looking bridal
To drop my shit on tidal, yeah yeah yeah yeah

Am I being too harsh if I classify these as struggle bars? I think it’s a fair label for these lines. I would’ve quoted more, but the obnoxious production makes it too difficult for me to decipher what he’s actually saying. Honestly, I think the song is terrible. It’s frustrating because it sounded like it was gonna be pretty cool at first, but it just went to shit as soon as he started rapping. Speaking of going to shit, SWITCH is the first song that really made it clear that this was gonna be a catastrophic album.

This is literally just a Playboi Carti song. Like, he’s not even trying to put his own spin on it or hide his influences. When I first put this song on, I literally said out loud “What the fuck is this shit?” The ad-libs are obviously Playboi Carti-inspired, and same goes for the unbearably repetitive hook. This is the last thing I would’ve expected from a [sLUms]. artist, but I guess it’s my fault for expecting them to all be similar musicians. I was in complete disbelief when I heard this song though. I was absolutely shocked. This song is fucking horrific man. I wanted to turn the album off and give up at this point. I thought I was tripping at first; like, maybe it’s not a Playboi Carti ripoff, and I’m the only person that sees it. That’s not the case though. The very first comment I saw under the music video was literally just this…

Screen Shot 2019-12-06 at 4.10.54 AM

He’s not the only person who pointed it out either. There were a bunch of people talking about it. Apparently this track samples a Playboi Carti & Travis Scott collaboration called Green & Purple. I can’t remember if I heard that song. The title actually looks familiar, but I probably hated it because I can’t stand Playboi Carti personally. Anyway, the song is dogshit. It’s followed by JANUARY, which isn’t much better unfortunately.

I’m not a fan of the production at all, but I think it would’ve worked better for someone like MIKE since he handles this style relatively well. The beat would probably make more sense to me if the actual rapping was good, but it’s just not. However, the content is at least somewhat interesting, especially compared to the preceding material on this album. The background vocals on this song are annoying as hell to me though. The song honestly just sounds like a fucking mess in my opinion. The beat doesn’t sound like it’s meant to be rapped over. It’s like a toilet full of sounds caught in a perpetual flush. The song has two features listed: BARI & BENZO. I’m not sure who performed the second verse, but he sounds even more uninterested and careless than Earl does on his recent material. It’s like he was falling asleep while recording, and he just freestyled in the moment. I mean, it’s clearly a freestyle, and a terrible one at that. It’s fucking bullshit. He wasn’t even trying. I think the song is wack af. It’s followed by yet another wannabe Playboi Carti song, called POLAROID. I think the production from Whyzoo, who also produced the previous Carti ripoff, is actually pretty cool. The actual song as a whole is dogshit though. The repetitive hook makes me suicidal whenever I listen to it. This song was actually the inspiration for this tweet…

His flow at least sounded decent compared to his other performances on this project up to this point, but that’s really not saying much. The actual content of the verse obviously isn’t engaging at all. The song was already bad enough, but, to add insult to injury, the final 70 seconds of the track just consist of audio of a random conversation, which I have zero interest in. The song is dogshit. The next track is called SPIRITS, and it ended up being one of the more painful tracks on the project. I was optimistic at first. The beat actually sounds pretty nice when the track starts. The featured vocals from Christina sound pretty flat, but they’re not unbearable or anything. Again, I liked the production at first, but I really wished that it was more layered and detailed; it’s very repetitive, and it gets old pretty quickly. It’s pretty much just one incessant loop. Here’s the one thing that makes the song so fucking bad: this bitch is SEVEN AND A HALF FUCKING MINUTES LONG.

doc rivers

Christina doesn’t hold my attention at all; her vocals were okay at first, although not particularly impressive, and the actual melody that she sings isn’t very entertaining to me at all either. She performs throughout the first two thirds of the song, and her meandering vocals just make me feel like I’m in musical limbo. Her performance should’ve been 30 seconds at the very most. The beat finally drops after 314 seconds, and the pitch of the loop is shifted up by a few semitones. This kinda reinvigorates the instrumental, but it’s far too little too late. I think Jodi’s performance here is relatively decent since his flow is okay, and the lyrics are at least somewhat interesting. However, the featured verse from LouweSupreme did absolutely nothing for me, and the absurdly long intro is fucking ridiculous, and frankly unacceptable in my opinion. The song is wack af overall. The following song, TENT, really threw me for a loop at first. What the fuck is going on with that first verse? It’s performed by a rapper named Elijah Banksy, and he employs one of the most awkward flows I’ve ever heard. I actually thought the lyrics were kinda cool, but they’re hard to appreciate when they’re delivered in such an unpleasant manner. The beat is very run-of-the-mill stuff, but it switches up after his verse. I think the second beat that comes in during Jodi’s verse is solid, but the verse itself sucks to me. He pretty much admits that he’s looking for success in the charts and for groupies, which seems strange to me. I mean, there’s not really anything wrong with that. He’s certainly not the first musician to have that attitude. The music he makes just doesn’t make it seem like that’s what his goal is. It’s way too off-kilter—and not in a good way—for him to have any mainstream success in my opinion. Perhaps I’m misinterpreting the lyrics though.

I don’t just do it for art, I do it for all the girls
Who givin’ it all for a start

Anyway, I think his flow is wack, and the lyrics didn’t really move me at all. I think this song is much more tolerable than the overwhelming majority of the other tracks on this project, but it’s still way longer than it needs to be—over five and a half minutes—and nothing about it is particularly enjoyable to me. I think the best part of the track is easily the sung outro from Melisha, which is actually pretty cool. However, it sounds like a random performance that she was practicing in her dressing room, while Jodi recorded her with a voice memo. There’s absolutely zero collaborative chemistry among the three artists on this track; all three of the performances are separated with their own instrumental, so this just sounds like three different songs spliced together. I think it’s wack. The following song is called snowflake, and it’s fucking trash. I think the production is okay, although it’d be more enjoyable to me if nobody was trying to rap over it. It’s the kind of beat that should remain an instrumental in my opinion. I really don’t care for Jodi’s flow or delivery on this song, and I find the lyrics to be very uninteresting. Nothing about the song is enjoyable to me. I think it would’ve been more tolerable had he ended it after the first verse, but he just transitions into a repetitive hook, followed by audio of another random conversation, which results in the song being extended by approximately 2 full minutes. I think it’s awful. The next song, shame, is another one of the worst tracks on the project to me. I suppose the beat is alright, but the vocals on the hook are awful, and the melodic delivery on the first verse sounds fucking terrible. It’s really bad. The dude’s singing sounds like a joke. I think it’s performed by one of the features. The song apparently features two different artists, named Justo Ontario & BIG DRE. If I had to guess, I’d say it was Justo Ontario, but I don’t know for sure. I was actually in shock when the song ended. If it was labeled as an interlude then I’d probably be a little more understanding, but it’s just supposed to be recognized as another full song on the album. The entire song is just the horrific singing. That’s the whole track. It’s just under 2 minutes long, but I expected it to at least have something to offer aside from the unbelievably horrible singing. It doesn’t though. The song is dogshit. The following track, SUNSETS, might actually be the worst song on the album. I don’t know. I haven’t decided on a least favorite track yet. I think the beat fucking sucks. The reverb on Jodi’s voice sounds really bad to me, and his basic ass flow is trash. Honestly, the song is fucking insulting. It’s some of the most boring shit I’ve heard in my life. It sounds like a robot that was designed to make boring, meandering sounds. It’s like the robot is malfunctioning though, and it’s playing all the sounds it’s capable of making at once. I don’t know why, but the song just feels like sonic barf. The featured vocals from ColdCasper sound horrible on this shit. I think the song is fucking dogshit. The next track, our nature, isn’t quite as unbearable, but it’s still pretty terrible. I think the beat is relatively solid, and the featured rapper, ZekeUltra, actually sounds pretty decent. His voice is similar to that of Ugly God in my opinion, but their styles are completely different. Zeke obviously takes himself more seriously. I think his verse is pretty solid. I also think that the weird guitar incorporation during the hook sounds really cool. Unfortunately, Jodi completely ruins the song with his horrible singing. I really wish it was a solo ZekeUltra song. It could’ve been the best song on the album, but it’s about 4x longer than it needs to be. It’s a terrible track. TRUST FALL might be the best one on the project. I’m gonna have to go back and confirm that it’s actually more tolerable than every other song. Part of me feels like I liked it more just because it was finally an end to this album. Anyway, I think the beat is solid, although it does kinda sound like BGM for an old Japanese video game. It’s still the best aspect of the song though. The singing from Jodi is trash, and the actual verse isn’t good either, but his flow and delivery are at least tolerable. It’s a bad song, but it’s far more listenable than the majority of the other songs.


This album is fucking God awful. It’s really disappointing honestly. I loved Jodi.10k’s first album, but he’s been on a severe decline. I went from thinking his first album was great, to thinking his second album was just okay, to now thinking that his latest album is genuinely trash. I didn’t see this coming at all. I’m legitimately sad right now. This is not a good situation. I don’t like having to shit on albums, especially when they come from underground artists like this. I have to be honest though. Listening to this was a painful experience. I’m glad that it’s finally over, but this was a fucking task. The thing that made me really like the first Jazz Jodi album was the stellar production. He was never the best MC, but he could hold his own. He didn’t actively annoy me. This makes me wish I was listening to that boring ass King Carter mixtape. I might’ve been too harsh on that shit because it’s a great project compared to this album. This is genuinely the worst album I’ve heard all year, and one of the worst albums I’ve heard period. I think I’m done with Jodi.10k, man. I thought the first single for his upcoming album was really bad too, so I see no reason to check it out when it eventually drops on January 1st. Again, I don’t enjoy listening to bad albums and shitting on them. Some people get genuine pleasure out of that, but I don’t personally. It seems like there are some people who actually enjoyed this album, so that’s good. I’m clearly just not the right audience for this. That’s okay. Not everything is for me, and this is proof. I think this album is fucking horrible.

Most Tolerable Song: TRUST FALL
Least Favorite Song: SUNSETS

20

L Flat
Grade: L
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2 comments

  1. Man as a Slums stan, this shit was so disappointing. To this day I still never finished this shit. It’s sad cause you could tell Jodi completely rebranded his self just to sell out. At least his visuals are cool, I guess.

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