A LOOK AT HOUSTON ARTIST’ 3ZAYY’s LATEST PROJECT
Written by IJR (@Only.Ijr)
Over the past three years, I’ve kept an eye over the talented Houston creative, 3Zayy (@3Zayy). Since meeting the artist, I’ve witnessed an interesting career trajectory bloom from a visual and creative standpoint, spanning multiple albums and projects as he rides the fine line between the melodic and aggressive elements of hip-hop. Though this isn’t 3Zayy’s first project, it feels like his best packaged one, having solid art direction, visual content, and an overall professional approach behind it for sure.
My initial thought, and come to think of it, my first critique before I even heard the music was regarding the project’s length. Containing a whopping nineteen tracks, streaming the entirety of “EVERYTHING BLACK AND WHITE” can become a rather lengthy task, however that fact alone isn’t enough to ruin the music of course. Sonically, 3Zayy chooses to continue with his usual style of combining melodic rap and bouncy, ethereal production. My favorite moments on this record come about every time that 3Zayy manages to do something interesting with his vocal delivery, whereas a lot of the project struggles because of what I would consider rather underwhelming songwriting, 3Zayy manages to make it work through the use of fun vocal inflections, and the occasional catchy flow or two. Now although I do commend 3Zayy for his attempt at experimentation, I will say that the project felt a bit stale in its beginning state, failing to really make an impression that was more than just passable, and safe music. In terms of writing, certain songs felt extremely repetitive and lacking in substance, even my favorite cut, “UNDERNEATH” suffered from a real lack of narrative, which feels like a missed opportunity to get vulnerable beyond the cliches we’re so used to hearing. The middle section is where the project’s energy starts to shift and become more aggressive and high in energy, which is a welcome change, however, some of the moments feel a little derivative of the sounds currently popular in the rap space, more specifically the sounds of Playboi Carti, and Yeat. Ultimately there are a lot of elements that I like on this project, and I wish they had been executed better because I bet that somewhere within this project is Gem that’s being covered by smoke, mirrors, and filler. My humble advice to 3Zayy is to take this project as a reflection piece and study what its weak and strong points are. One of the biggest lingering questions that I felt after listening through the entire project was what does it all mean? When it's all said and done, what were we supposed to take away from EBAW? What does it even mean? It doesn’t seem to be a fully fleshed-out Idea, and I just feel like there was so much potential there to give insight into the world 3Zayy aims to curate through his music.
Official Score: 6/10
