Kaytranada & Amine – KAYTRAMINE

So… last year, I reviewed a collaboration from producer Kaytranada and rapper IDK with simple. and that ended up being one of my favorite projects of that year. Now lo and behold, in comes another unexpected collaboration project, and this time it’s with rapper Amine. Remember him?

That one rapper that did a song called “Caroline?” I reviewed him a couple of years ago on his sophomore project Limbo, and I remember that being a solid project. The first single coming out of this new collaboration was “4EVA” with Pharrell Williams, and I certainly remember the kind of vibes and grooves that Kay is known for. And as for Amine rapping on here: he’s fine although I could do without the line “Spank that ass, broke her back up in London (Ah)/ Hit it like Anderson, pack that pussy up baby, I’ll handle it (Shee)“.

So we got about 11 tracks here with a cool 33 minute runtime, and there’s a small list of features from Freddie Gibbs to Big Sean & Snoop Dogg. Now for the big question…. how’s the album?

Yeah, this isn’t going to be a long one but I think this was a decent listen from start to finish. You deliberately get those funky and groovy vibes from Kaytranada’s production immediately and it is very hypnotic and vibrant. It started off well with songs like “Who He Iz” and “letstalkaboutit,” and most of thm have Amine going on about who he is in the rap game and being braggadocious as you might expect. The latter track features a verse from Freddie Gibbs, and his part was good. It had this verse I liked wherehe says he doesn’t do a verse without curses; kinda like how Eminem once said, “Will Smith don’t gotta curse in his rap to sell records, well I do.” It’s sort of like that in a way except Gibbs rhymed that with fucking nurses.

Then shawty give me the goodies like Ciara (Uh-huh)
I get my chicken on the motherfuckin’ first (Stupid)
My daddy wanna donate chicken to the church (Foolish)
I wanna have all our account inside my Verzuz (Uh-huh)

“Westside” and “Master P” have some trippy sounds as the former samples a Bollywood song “Bahut Pyar Karte Hai” and the latter has some distorted vocals in the background with a nice short instrumental outro. And yeah, we have Big Sean on here and well…

“Y’all niggas better watch it,” I said when I hopped in it
I would be a prophet, how could I not profit?

Fuck FOMO, niggas on go mode
And I’m still gettin’ show money even when I no-show
And I’m really Mr. Anderson, I’m dodgin’ shots slow-mo

OK, to be fair, his bars are not as cringy as that one aforementioned line from “4EVA” but hey, most of Big Sean’s bars have gone from corny to moderately decent in some years. As for Amine himself on bars, he’s mostly in his braggadocios bag and he does often rap well in those beats, and I admit some of them do hit. From the one line in “STFU3” (Hatin’ on a nigga like they name was Rachel Nichols (Damn)) and on “UGH UGH”… well, it was bound to happen. Someone did a bar referencing that Will Smith/Chris Rock Oscars slap incident… and it’s not entirely awful. At least it’s saying like this collab made a slap and most of this do slap.

Look, KAYTRAMINÉ made a slap, call it Will Smith
Rappers ain’t my friends, they finna hate us like we was Chris
Rockin’ shit from your wishlist, bitch, you should take a pic

Again, the instrumental outro of “UGH UGH” is a damn good highlight showing how great Kaytranada is as a producer. “EYE” has Snoop Dogg as a feature and his verse is relatively fine for the most part. It sounds more dignified than a lot of his verses where he phones it in or just does whatever, and the last track “K&A” has an instrumental that is just too gorgeous. And of course, Amine drops some bars like this:

KAYTRAMINÉ, best rap album, competition none (Yeah)
“Underrated,” they tryna act like I ain’t drop seventy-one (Yeah)
Sickamore said it best, all you niggas bums

Overall, I say this was a pretty decent collab album that combines the best of Kaytranada’s production and Amine’s rapping, although I can say that I’m more into the former than the latter but it isn’t a detriment of his skills. Just a few weak bars here and there but it is all good. Is it the best rap album as he proclaims? Or even the best rap collab album? Not really, but still it makes a good listen if you’re in the need for more Amine or Kaytranada if he ever releases another solo effort.

FINAL VERDICT: STREAM IT. The hip-hop version of peanut butter and banana. Weird at first but all good in the end.

 

KAYTRAMINE is on CLUB BANANA & KAYTRANADA Music & Publishing under VENICE MUSIC and is available on digital download and streaming services.

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