Haven’t done a review in a while, so decided to check out the new album by hip-hop vet and producer extraordinaire Large Pro. The project is 11 tracks strong with 9 songs and 2 instrumentals. Stand out features include Queens underground king Cormega, Inspectah Deck, and Brand Nubian.
Overall, I’m pleasantly surprised how dope the project is. There isn’t one wack beat on the album and despite being an older cat, Extra P doesn’t come off sounding dated. Aside from the beats, Large Pro def did his thing on the mic. He experimented with several types of different flows and tried to vary the content. It’s def refreshing to hear someone with a track record as long as his still come up with something fresh. My only criticism of the album is it wasn’t promoted well! I barely heard about it and I haven’t seen it supported on any blogs. This one def needs to be out there. Go cop it now!
Peep the track by track review below:
1. Re: Living – The album kicks off with a gritty and dark piano beat. Large Pro blesses the mic by proclaiming his legendary status and giving his opinion on today’s hip-hop “A lot of what y’all call rap, I call excrement“. You get the picture!
2. Dreams Don’t Die – Large Pro explores a few different stories from his past over a mellow 80’s synth sampled beat. He touches on growing up in his apartment as a youth, hanging out with Q-Tip, meeting a girl, and the death of a friend.
3. Opulence – One of the best beats on the album – featuring a mellow, jazzy piano beat with some spacey synth samples over the hook. Large Pro takes a slower and more pause-heavy flow on this one, talking about the past again and how he got through his struggles.
4. Earn – This is one of the instrumentals on the album. It’s nothing crazy. More like an interlude
5. Off Yo Azz on Yo Feet – A slightly DJ Premier influenced type beat with Extra P telling people to get motivated and make moves. I applaud him for trying something different and harmonizing on the hook, but it doesn’t work as well as it could have. Maybe I’m just not used to hearing Large Pro like that.
6. In the Scrolls – Extremely dope concept where Large Pro talks about the time when Illmatic dropped and how it impacted Hip Hop. This track features G-Wiz who I think is the same one from Bravehearts. Would have been dope if Nas was on it though!
7. Own World – Another one of the dopest beats on the album. This track touches on Large Pro’s love for his girl. Basically the polar opposite of “Looking at the Front Door“. Need to find the drum loop for this one!
8. Sophia Yo – I actually have the sample for this one haha. This track is a mandolin-driven, hard knocking head-nodder where Extra P talks about a dude getting caught out there trying to kick to a hot chick Sophia.
9. New Train Ole Route – Classic Large Pro production with a Whatnauts snare, piano loop, and a jazzy horn for the hook. On this one, he’s visiting the past and declaring how him and his generation of hip-hop paved the way for everyone that came after.
10. Industry Remix 2 – This track actually doesn’t feature a verse from Large Pro but instead has Inspectah Deck, Cormega, Roc Marciano, and Brand Nubian (Sadat X & Lord Jamar) handling the vocal duties. The star of this track is Deck who touches on the current state of the industry. Peep the dope lines:
“Pretty hoes in the videos, thighs and a thong,
A few views on YouTube, but who’s buying the song?
Worldstar don’t give a fuck how you body the verse,
they’ll desecrate your mixtape, so Connie can twerk”
Only downside about this track is that Roc sounds kind of out of place with the rest of the vets. Also, Lord Jamar’s verse sounds like it was recorded on a phone.
11. NDN – The album closes out with a dope beat. Would have been nice if he spit a verse on this one!
Large Professor chops it up with XXL about the upcoming projects he has in the works and what he thinks of hip-hop today.