Joey Bada$$
B4.DA.$$
Release Date: Jan 20, 2015
Genre(s): Rap
Record label: Relentless
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Album Review: B4.DA.$$ by Joey Bada$$
Very Good, Based on 20 Critics
Based on rating 8.5/10
Joey Bada$$ :: B4.DA.$$Pro Era, LLC/Cinematic Music GroupAuthor: Sy ShacklefordFor close to a decade now, most artists representing the birthplace of hip-hop have been relegated to the back-burner. These are the ones who remained true to their hometown roots and, while wanting to hit it big without "selling out", have consequently failed to adapt to the modern landscape. Don't get me wrong, you can put out quality best-seller albums ("good kid, m.A.A.d.
Based on rating 8/10
A music-critic pet peeve of mine is when a writer declares that a new album or song sounds exactly like some classic from the past, such that if you closed your eyes you wouldn’t know the difference. It’s never true. You can always tell the difference between soul-revivalists and a Motown or Stax classic, for example. With Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$, though, it’s tempting to say such a thing.
Based on rating 4.0/5
Joey Bada$$ has aligned the release of his debut album with his 20th birthday and the title, B4.Da.$$, seems like an attempt to neatly encapsulate the teenage years that led up to this moment. In the two-and-a-half years since the release of Joey’s breakout mixtape, 1999, the Hip Hop collective he helped jumpstart as a high-schooler has thinned out. Beginning with the heartbreaking suicide of Pro Era rapper Capital STEEZ in 2012, even more sorrow came last month when Bada$$’s cousin and manager passed last month.
Based on rating 4/5
The debut studio album from Joey Bada$$, aka NYC hip hop prodigy Jo-Vaughn Virginie Scott, arrives accompanied by such a substantial side of hysteria that it can be difficult to untangle the bluster from the substance. Two years is a lifetime in modern music, and the buzz has been growing since Bada$$ announced himself with astonishing composure on the epic ‘1999’ mixtape way back in 2012, before its creator had even celebrated his 18th birthday. In terms of sound, ‘B4.
Based on rating B+
The audience is chanting for the performer to take the stage, but this — Joey Bada$$ — isn’t supposed to be what they want. The Brooklyn teenager has been both praised and written off as a throwback, rapping over old beats by DOOM, J Dilla, and Lord Finesse. He’s conservative where young artists are expected to challenge tradition, but, over time, the newcomer with the unsightly name has turned out to be less of a nuisance and more of a serious prospect.
Based on rating 7/10
With a style that's an all-encompassing throwback, going from Notorious B.I.G. to Mos Def, Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$ draws the golden age hip-hop fetishist in without a problem, but his delivery is so full of life, it still holds sway for those who don't know their Bad Boy from their Death Row. This fine debut is also filled with productions from Statik Selektah, DJ Premier, and others whose names hold weight, but beat junkies will most likely jump right to the smoky highlight "Like Me," where the Roots complete a lost track from the late, great J.
Based on rating 7.0/10
One of the longest shadows in hip-hop is cast by a 14-month stretch from September '93 through November '94. Arguably the last and finest run of hip-hop's golden age, this period is bookended by the releases of De La Soul's alt-rap classic Buhloone Mindstate and Redman's surreal, grimy Dare Iz a Darkside—and encompasses so many distinctly earth-shaking individual statements it's almost beyond belief. Midnight Marauders, Enter the Wu-Tang, Illmatic, Ready to Die, Doggystyle, The Diary, Hard to Earn, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, Resurrection—even the stuff that hasn't crossed over to the same extent, like Black Moon's Enta da Stage or O.
Based on rating 7/10
With an ear for beats, intricate rhyming and nostalgic vibes, over the past few years Cinematic Music Group's Joey Bada$$ has repaved a rap route that has been seemingly abandoned for over two decades. Ironically, it's the music from those two decades that has propelled the 20-year-old Brooklyn native into fame, and after several projects and features, his debut album, B4. Da.
Based on rating 3.5/5
Once you work your way through its thicket of numbers, periods, and symbols, the title of Joey Bada$$'s B4.DA.$$ seems self-explanatory: a snapshot of a young artist on the cusp, implying both an atmosphere of pre-fame candor and the money that'll soon be rolling in. It's also the first indicator of green as a recurrent motif, an arbiter of status and power that filters its way throughout this surprisingly well-structured debut. Blustery in all the usual ways, the 19-year-old Bada$$ is also precociously considerate of both album arrangement and public perception, viewing his passage from ordinary teenager to budding star as an occasion for self-reflection and cultural examination.
Based on rating 6.2/10
There is a scene in the movie Detention where one of the characters, Elliot Fink, is shown to have spent 20 years untouched by any fads, trends or crazes. “Keeping it real” incarnate, he spends 20 years wearing the same clothes, encased in his hoodie like a frozen Neanderthal in mammoth’s wool. Though that same scene also mocks the people around him who were continually influenced by fads, Fink’s life is that one that ends up looking the most ridiculous, the most alien.
Based on rating 3/5
You could call Joey Bada$$ a victim of his own tardiness. Having broken out of the New York mixtape underground with fizzing breakout single ‘Survival Tactics’ three years ago, had ‘B4.DA.$$’ been released in mid-2014 as planned, this delayed debut album proper would have probably been hailed as a tidy tribute to Golden Age boom-bap, full of kush cloud chill and slinking nods to Nas’ defining ’90s rap fable ‘Illmatic’. Instead, arriving after 2014’s Ferguson crisis, its mining of Nas’ sound, with little of the New York hip-hop veteran’s socially conscious lyricism, feels weird.
Based on rating 3/5
It's been nearly three years since Joey Bada$$ emerged on the scene as the rap wunderkind with a style reminiscent of the '90s, exhibited on his debut mixtape, 1999. A lot has taken place in his life since then. While he's yet to secure solo chart success and radio play, Joey has established himself as a respected underground act, backed by a loyal audience that gravitates toward his throwback lyricism.
Based on rating 3/5
Brooklyn's Joey Bada$$ made his name with a couple of mixtapes released while he was still in his teens, trading on classic boom-bap New York rap. His official debut LP still sounds like it's stuck in the past, with solid production from old-school legend DJ Premier and his latter-day disciple Statik Selektah. But tracks like "Piece of Mind," about the day-to-day struggle of being a black youth, explore fresh lyrical ideas, and Joey's impassioned delivery excels.
Based on rating 2/5
Hip-hop is now in its fifth decade, and so well established that it can produce its own nostalgists – artists in love with an era they never experienced. Such is Joey Bada$$, a rapper whose sound and style is a straight mimic of the “golden age” of mid-90s boom-bap hip-hop. His flow flits between that of Mos Def, Wyclef Jean and Buckshot; he repurposes rhymes by the Notorious B.I.G; he talks about blunts and spits braggadocio.
Opinion: Excellent
At times it feels like Joey Bada$$ has been around for a decade already. The 20-year-old Brooklyn MC caught the hip-hop world’s attention in mid-2012 with his fantastic debut mixtape 1999 and the free-spirited visual of his first single “Survival Tactics” with Capital STEEZ and has been building steadily from there, with a Pro Era crew mixtape at the end of that year and a 2013 followup tape, Summer Knights, 18 months ago. But what seemed like the makings of a meteoric rise, has been interrupted repeatedly along the way with personal tragedies which have delayed and altered Joey’s official debut LP.
Opinion: Excellent
God damn, there's so much thought and attention to detail on this long-awaited, proper album by Joey Bada$$, it's hard to believe he's only just turned 20. After hot mixtapes made him a teenage legend over the last three years, this kid (born Jo-Vaughn Virginie Scott in Brooklyn, which he reps hard) has far surpassed expectations with this masterful statement tracing his life and struggles. A child of East Coast hip-hop, Bada$$ celebrates NYC on Paper Trail$, borrowing the hook from Wu-Tang's C.R.E.A.M.
Opinion: Excellent
Listening to this remarkably assured and versatile debut, it’s hard to believe that Brooklyn, N.Y., native Joey Bada$$ is a mere 19. Possessing skills far beyond his years, the rapper makes a leap from his mixtapes with verses evoking many of the New York MCs who preceded him, while establishing a compelling, unique voice. Despite his gimmicky moniker, this is real-deal hip-hop, antithetical to the numbskull bottle-and-booty clap rap clogging the mainstream.
Opinion: Great
Whether Joey Bada$$ wearing his influences like honor badges is cause for celebration or critique depends on the listener more than "the lyrical New York City bandit. " Like the mixtapes preceding it, official debut full-length B4. DA.
Opinion: Great
Here you'll find reviews of four much-discussed albums released in January that, forsomereason or another, we couldn't get to in time. Natalie PrassNatalie Prass Natalie Prass (or, your fool, as she mostly refers to herself on her stunning debut) is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter. She began her career as a back-up singer for Jenny Lewis. Spacebomb’s Matthew E.
Opinion: Great
Leading up to the release of his debut record, Joey Bada$$ has been hailed as a supremely talented up-and-comer, a boast that often had more to do with his age (just 20 years old as of this release) than an honest examination of his output. He showed immense promise on his solo mixtapes 1999 and Summer Knights, but both were inconsistent records, releases that, while certainly engaging, were clearly building blocks for something more substantial. Bada$$’s verse on A$AP Rocky’s “1 Train” suffered from similar problems, his still-developing flow sounding out of place next to the tight rhymes of guys like Kendrick Lamar and Danny Brown.
'B4.DA.$$'
is available now