Rye Rye
Go! Pop! Bang!
Release Date: May 15, 2012
Genre(s): Electronic, Rap, Pop/Rock, Club/Dance, Alternative Dance, Alternative Rap
Record label: Interscope
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Go! Pop! Bang! from Amazon
Album Review: Go! Pop! Bang! by Rye Rye
Very Good, Based on 7 Critics
Based on rating 5/5
The exclamation marks in the album title only hint at the emphatic nature of the debut album from longtime M.I.A. sidekick Rye Rye. The Baltimore rapper is a spaz extraordinaire – a party girl, smack-talker and dance-floor commandant whose unflagging energy lifts even the least of her material. Not that there’s much heavy lifting to do: Go! Pop! Bang! is clattery electro hop, with beats from top producers (Pharrell Williams, Bangladesh), and cameos from Akon, Robyn and M.I.A., who turns up in "Better Than You," trading boasts over a sample from the musical Annie Get Your Gun.
Based on rating 7.0/10
There are a handful of jarring moments on Rye Rye's long-delayed debut that remind us of the music industry's comically strange state of artist development limbo. The passage of time is sometimes palpable here. Three tracks in, "DNA" hits you like a Red Bull and vodka-drunken brick, stamped with producer RedOne's unmistakable Eurodance throb. On the next track, "Crazy Bitch", Akon delivers an awkward chorus of "She's a craaaaa-zzzyyy bitch/ That's why I love her/ That's why I love her" over a guitar-strummy hook that could've easily been a Travie McCoy throwaway.
Based on rating 7/10
After a string of delays pushed back the release date for years, Baltimore rapper Rye Rye makes her much anticipated debut on Go! Pop! Bang!. Blending hip-hop swagger with the Baltimore club's sense of kinetics, Rye Rye delivers a collection of pulsing songs with enough energy and movement to get any dancefloor pumping. Dropping in on a couple of tracks is M.I.A., who not only gave the singer her break back when she was still in high school, but takes the reigns on the album as executive producer.
Based on rating 3/5
After several delays, Baltimore party starter and M.I.A. protege Rye Rye finally releases her major-label debut, which finds the club rapper cheerfully spitting her in-your-face flow over a variety of tempos and styles. On opener Drop, she proclaims, "I'm a hood girl doing white girl shit," a nod to her transformation from underground B'more club MC/dancer to big-time pop threat supported by Akon, RedOne, Pharrell Williams and Robyn.
Based on rating 5/10
Given the three-year delay in this record's release date, I figure it's only appropriate to give you an extremely belated review. That's how I like to justify my procrastination, anyway. To be fair, though, all that extra time gave me a chance to shake off my initial excitement and become totally disillusioned. If I'd been on time, I would have given Rye Rye's debut an 8/10.
Opinion: Excellent
There’s nothing misleading about the title of Rye Rye’s debut album, Go! Pop! Bang!, out now on N.E.E.T./Interscope. From the police siren start and popcorn beats of “Drop,” Rye Rye assures us that she’s still the party girl rapper with the voice of a gum-smacking teenager. And that dancing to her tracks is mandatory.A lot has changed for Rye Rye since she first caught the attention of music industry heavyweights at just 16.
Opinion: Very Good
Rye Rye The Baltimore rapper Rye Rye has been announcing her debut album, “Go! Pop! Bang!” (N.E.E.T./Interscope) since 2009, when she was still a teenager. At the time her brash, rapidfire rhymes and skeletal electro tracks had been embraced by M.I.A., who took her on tour and signed her to her label. Then pregnancy, motherhood and newer material put the album in limbo.
'Go! Pop! Bang!'
is available now