Genre: Hip Hop
Release Date: February 26, 2013
Record Label: Strange Music
After two preceding albums that both ran for over seventy minutes, Kansas City rapper Kutt Calhoun has trimmed the length down this time around on Black Gold to a more reasonable and condensed full-hour. While his past albums had more than enough songs on them, Calhoun’s recurring issue has always been that his tracks can sound far too similar. Black Gold manages to extinguish this issue by concentrating on fewer songs that are memorable, as opposed to an abundance of songs that are nearly identical.
The hooks are given a lot more care and attention than they have been on his past albums; Calhoun has had a habit of outdoing a song’s chorus in his verses to such a point that the hooks became nothing more than inferior annoyances. But on Black Gold, instances such as the infectious sing-sung chorus of “Self Preservation” truly stick instantaneously, and the slight tweaks made to “See What Had Happened Was” keeps listeners attention as the song progresses.
The beats on Black Gold aren’t really much in the way of innovation, they cover the familiar areas of southern hip hop, underground, and even some g-funk here and there; but with Strange Music producer Seven being the only one at the reins of the production (other than Monsta Muzik) the tunes here are much more focused and don’t suffer from a too many cooks in the kitchen pitfall like his previous album Raw and Un-Kutt (2010).
Vocally, Calhoun is more solid and forceful in his delivery than he’s ever been. His flow has slick grooves, and he retains a confident cool in his character while remaining urgent and magnetic; never getting too aggressive, but just hostile enough to grant his words a sting and give a growl to his beats.
Calhoun is still the most tame artist on Tech N9ne’s Strange Music label, and even though featuring the most erratic artists signed to said label on Black Gold lead to him being out-shined on his own album in terms of energy and personality (especially by Tech N9ne himself on “I Been Dope”), Calhoun has made a strong hook-oriented hip hop album that has the appropriate amount of bangers and cruisers to keep listener coming back for more and more.
Tracklisting:
1. Self Preservation
2. 501s and Rightsides
3. I Been Dope
4. I Don’t Like the Look of It
5. See What Had Happened Was
6. Same Thing
7. Jack Tripper
8. Anthem
9. It’s Goin’ Down
10. Baby Mama Drama
11. That’s My Word
12. Hello and Goodbye
13. In They Honor
14. I Been Dope (The Town Remix)Band Links:
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