Given that this is a studio album, why would you insert a mixtape element into each and every song? By the third or fourth time we hear it we know who’s producing FFS! 🙄 Statik does however, keep an unabating tone from start to finish but as I’ve already said, alongside the sound of a tape or CD being inserted and ejected at the start and end of the album, the focus of the production seems to be something altogether different than the LP’s apparent concept.

Rudebwoy is entirely produced by Statik Selektah and his trademark female-voiced “Statik Selektah” shout-out-slash-tag thingamabob gets slightly irritating. Alongside the weaker shit however, there’s also “Grew Up” which features a powerfully-delivered chorus by Haile Supreme. For instance there’s some unwanted, wannabe cocktail-bar singing (“Hard Times” featuring Lexipaz and “Goin Thru” featuring T’nah) which could have been re-worked, removed and improved.

Most of the features could have been removed and this may have resulted in better songs. In a 13-track LP there’s a whopping 9 that contain featured artists which is arguably too many. The title track “Rudebwoy” featuring Joey Bada$$ (where’s his next album at?) sports yet more jazzy production, this time with a catchy chorus “Cause I’m a rudebwoy and I ain’t gon’ change”… This topic is recorded over slow-tempo, horn-infused production and this combination sets the tone for the entire album. The album begins with “Goin Thru” which is about Fly’s trials and tribulations that he’s faced throughout his life. There’s a great flow in “Show You” and “LV Ascot”, there’s some personal, introspective lyrics in “Grew Up” and “Strugglin’”, and there’s some blunted, golden-era-esque production throughout courtesy of throwback beat-maker Statik Selektah. That being said, there’s lots to like in CJ’s debut LP. jazz-influenced soundscape doesn’t quite match the title. There may be a dash of West-Indian patois here and there but the overall N.Y. Like many of Pro Era’s solo offerings, this release is chock-full of ’90s boom bap sounds. The LP’s artwork and title represents his familial heritage of Barbados and Jamaica but this island-referencing aesthetic isn’t exactly a constant for the entire album. Pro Era’s CJ Fly who gave us mixtapes Thee Way Eye See It in 2013 and Flytrap in 2016, today releases his debut studio album Rudebwoy. ~ Neil Z.By What Went Wrong Or Right With.? on Ma At the end of the year, Downer returned to his solo work with the singles 'Bird' and 'Rudebwoy' with Joey Bada$$. They issued a 2019 album, Escape from New York, and embarked on a U.S. Hopping back to his duties with Pro Era, he joined the crew for single 'King to a God' and later teamed with Flatbush Zombies and the Underachievers to form the hip-hop supergroup Beast Coast. The album included the single 'Now You Know,' as well as appearances by Canadian rapper Devontée and singer Eryn Allen Kane. His official solo debut, Flytrap, was issued at the end of 2016. and the Shift EP arrived in 2014 before Downer returned to his own work. The collection featured appearances by Ab-Soul and Phife Dawg, as well as production by Statik Selektah and Cookin' Soul. In 2013, he joined tours with the likes of Flatbush Zombies, the Underachievers, Wiz Khalifa, and A$AP Rocky before releasing his first mixtape, Thee Way Eye See It. After the formation of Pro Era, his early career followed the crew's trajectory, with notable appearances on their 2012 effort, P.E.E.P.: The Aprocalypse, and Bada$$'s debut, 1999. His official debut, Flytrap, arrived three years later.īorn Chaine Downer, Jr., the Bedford-Stuyvesant native transformed a childhood love of poetry into a focus on rap in the seventh grade. As a solo artist, he issued his debut mixtape, Thee Way Eye See It, in 2013. Along with high school friends Joey Bada$$, Powers Pleasant, and Capital Steez, Brooklyn rapper CJ Fly founded the Pro Era hip-hop collective in 2011.

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