Review: Rapsody - Beauty and the Beast EP
By Xavier Veccia, Managing Editor
[Jamla Records; 2014]
Rating: 6/10
Key Tracks: “Drama,” “The Man”
Screw “female emcees,” Rapsody is one of the most talented emcees putting projects out right now, period. When she was left out of the 2014 XXL Freshmen, the issue wasn’t that the hip-hop publication neglected to include a feminine influence, but that it neglected to include a talented artist that could spit circles around half the freshmen who made the list.
However, this isn’t just an issue with XXL. The issue lies in hip-hop as a culture. Even if listeners tune into Rapsody, they’re still comparing her to strictly other female artists. Comment boards on hip-hop blogs are littered with names like Lil Kim and Remy Ma, other “female emcees.” Sure, there’s differences between men and women when it comes to rapping--imagine Jay-Z spitting the lyrics, “I chose to wear a dress today / I got small breasts”--but that doesn’t mean they are separate in conversation.
So, on behalf of the rest of the hip-hop world, I promise to measure Rapsody’s Beauty and the Beast EP on the same scale as I would any other album by any other rapper, no matter the gender and not by putting her side-by-side with Nicki Minaj or Iggy Azalea.
That being said, Beauty and the Beast EP just isn’t all that great. It’s a long way from bad, too. It’s just somewhere in between.
Rapsody is still the lyricist we’ve all come to love on Beauty. “The Man” especially proves to be one of her best songs to date. On the slow, simple and soulful beat, she tells the story of a boy having to grow up too early, becoming the man through the streets in order to be the man for his family.
However, the downfall of Rapsody is the repetitive nature of Beauty. Half of the songs sound like they were just rejects from 2013’s She Got Game. Even the lead single and one of the better songs “Hard to Choose” has a similar beat, flow, feel and vibe as her release a year ago. Soulful samples are fun, but one cannot build an album solely on them.
Luckily, Rap does try to break out of her shell. “Godzilla” and, more importantly, “Drama” thrust Rapsody into the trap scene. With trap being a subgenre so often associated with glorified hype boys, it’s truly refreshing to hear someone with Rapsody’s talent spit witty lines like “Throwing shade so much a n**** never need a tent” over a bass-thumping track.
Beauty and the Beast EP is still a head-bobbingly good release by Rapsody. For an EP, it runs a bit longer at 10 tracks and 39 minutes, giving the listener plenty of new material from the North Carolina emcee. Fans of Rapsody will enjoy the soulful feel of the album, but if Rapsody wants to prove XXL and the message boards wrong, she has to prove she’s better than herself. Beauty is a fine release by hip-hop standards, but it could be better by Rapsody’s.
