Although I don’t particularly listen to rap very much on my own, I do get to hear quite a bit of it through my roommates and friends who are more in tune with that genre than I am. But even so, I am not quite certain what makes a good rap song versus a bad one. So, to analyze The Villan Boyz newest CD Millionaire Dreamz, I am forced to think about rap music’s most basic qualities and compare The Villan Boyz to other successful artists according to those qualities.
Those categories I came up with go as follows: 1 Entertainment, 2 Lyrics, 3 Beats, 4 Image, 5 Production.
1. The Villan Boyz are not entertaining me in the traditional sense. I am more entertained in the sense that I find some of the music humorous. I don’t think they intended this though.
2. Lyrically, there seems to be something lacking. Although not all of them, a lot of the songs seem to lack a definite hook. In the songs that do have hooks, they are simply not very memorable or special. The lyrics are generally about smoking pot, girls shaking their asses, people keeping it real, how amazing these guys think they are, the guns they have or other standard gangsta themes. Nothing is special, but nothing is out of the ordinary for the genre. There are a few times when the lyrics are over simplified and bad though.
3. The beats are not that bad. There are several places where I wished they would have used some more dramatic changes in dynamics or style. Part of the issue with lack of definition in their hooks is that their beats don’t serve to create defined sections for verses and choruses.
There are a few beats which are pretty good but still nothing that is particularly special. Also, almost all singing sections through the whole album are just plain bad.
4. Image is a problem. These guys don’t look like villains nor do they sound like villains. I’m sure they might have done some things in their lives that they might consider hardcore or dangerous, but the reality is that the feeling I get is that they are just two guys who smoke a lot of weed and hang out making music. The image they are trying to portray feels false.
5. Production is also a problem. To begin with, there are some basic issues with master levels. The songs have dramatically differing volume levels along with varying bass and treble levels throughout the whole CD. I found myself having to adjust my stereo several times due to tracks that came out louder than others.
However, there is little dynamic variation throughout the individual tracks. Once a specific track’s feel is set, it rarely changes.
Overall, I am very bored when I listen to this album. It is hard to listen to the whole thing because it is really long and it doesn’t do anything that I haven’t seen before. They are simply not very original.
To be successful as a rap artist these days, and especially as white rap artists, more is necessary than what this album does.
