Glasses Malone/Nightmare on Seven Street As one of the most hyped and anticipated artists to emerge from the “new West” since Game put the coast back on the map five years ago, Glasses Malone has been patiently waiting to make his major label debut. With his latest mixtape Nightmare on Seven Street, Glasses offers the closest thing to a proper album with all-original tracks and a handful of features. While he has been known for rapping hard and unapologetically, the Nightmare title is a tad misleading. Tracks like “Homie” and “Brown Lil Squares” featuring Bow Wow feature Glasses going for the “ladies” and “radio” demographics while “Loaded” has a synth-driven groove that makes you want to throw on a bathrobe and chill, like Glasses does on the song. Malone returns to his familiar themes like revenge, chin-checking and head-busting on “On Me” and “Still With the Bullshit,” but his monotone flows don’t make the songs very memorable. The standout track “Before It All Ends” featuring Snoop Dogg and Jay Rock proves that he can hold his own alongside respected emcees, but it also reveals that Glasses sounds better with company. Nightmare demonstrates that Glasses is good at picking beats that fit his nonchalant, grown-ass man rhyme style, but adding a sense of urgency to his flow could truly propel him to elite status. Maurice G. Garland Lee Bannon/The Checkpoint After supplying beats to a range of artists like Willie the Kid and Tha Jacka and turning a few heads with his last project Me & Marvin, Sacramento-based producer follows up his last offering with The Checkpoint. This project doesn’t disappoint. Leaning more towards Stones Throw than Death Row, Bannon’s production sound is meant to be paired with skilled wordsmiths like Terminology. He gives rap game participants vital instructions for growth on “What’s The Answer.” Trife Diesel (formerly Trife Da God) also spits some venom on “Wanna Be A Rapper,” warning up-and-coming artists of the rough road ahead. While all of the production featured here is solid, none of the beats do much to actually cater to the artists. Instead, it’s the other way around, as each rapper winds up altering what they do to fit the track. That isn’t a bad thing, but rarely does it feel like these songs were actually made from scratch with both parties present. - Maurice G. Garland
DOM KENNEDY & Los Angeles Leakers Best After Bobby On Best After Bobby, listeners have to endure listening to the Los Angeles emcee attempt to redo classic and current hits like Prodigy’s “Keep It Thoro” and Drake’s “Best I Ever Had,” but some tracks, like his flip of Young Money’s “Every Girl” to “idontwannafuckeverygirlintheworld” and a sample of A Tribe Called Quest’s “Electric Relaxation” on “Wish Me Luck!” make this mixtape worth a listen. By the time DOM gets to remixing Rich Kids “Patna Dem,” the jacking-for-beats starts to be a bore, but the tape’s final few tracks (“On and Off Switch” featuring Pac Div, “Compton, South Central,” “I Hate Summers” and “They Say I’m) close this mixtape out strong. - Randy Roper AtLlas Arizona Caesar Some parts of Atllas’ mixtape sounds good, but there are a few songs like “Dead End” and “Catch Me Bounce” where his attempts to be “Arizona’s most lyrical emcee” results in him sounding more like a low-budget Pharoahe Monch. “Hood Famous,” “Grudges” and “Think About It” are the mixtape’s best tracks, but “More Then Fuck” and “Bitches On My Mind” are lacking. Arizona Caesar isn’t one of the better West Coast mixtapes to drop in ’09, but it does have a few memorable selections. - Randy Roper Fashawn Boy Meets World One Records Boy Meets World may be Fashawn’s debut album, but in terms of songwriting, concepts and skill level, this album proves that the Fresno, CA native is a musical manchild. The socially reflective “The Ecology,” the reminiscent “Life As a Short,y” and the introspective “Why” lead a long list of must-hear tracks that thoroughly conceptualize the album’s theme of a boy growing up in sunny Central Cali and becoming a man. Features from Blu (“Samsonite Man”), Evidence (“Our Way”), and Exile’s exclusive production enhance this outstanding effort, making Boy Meets World one of 2009’s most promising debut albums. - Randy Roper