The Black Sheep by Andrew Holder

@AndrewHolder13

     Andrew Holder got his first taste at making music with his 2013 release The Black Sheep. Holder, born in Brooklyn then transplanted to Pocono, New York has a plethora of potential in the hip-hop industry and recently made noise sharing a bill with two artists previously featured on the site, Mic Blaque and Micheal Moon. 

     Holder has flashes of greatness throughout the seventeen track album. He gets very lyrical at times on the tape, but often would fall back on the cliche' rapper rhymes of money, weed, women. This was somewhat disheartening because you can hear the ability in which Holder possess yet he seems to underachieve. That being said, his cliche' rhymes are still pretty good and many people will find that they like this side of the emcee. 

     This debut album by Holder does accomplish one thing that has somewhat evaporated from the genre, and that is the sound of location. In the 90's, you could tell where any given rapper was from based mostly on the style of their music. Now that's a rare trait mostly because boarders in hip-hop have seemingly dissipated and for Andrew Holder to sound like an emcee out of Brooklyn (which he is) on his debut album is truly commendable.

     Production credits on the album are given to Ben Bladz and Mr. Holder himself. This is also another pleasant quality found on The Black Sheep. A fatal flaw by up and coming artists is the use of numerous producers on a debut album or mixtape. It doesn't present a professional appeal and hardly ever sounds as good as it could with a small number of producers. The production on this particular album is fairly solid. It has a various of production styles, but it all sounds within the same realm which is always a plus for the listeners experience.

     Download this album, it really is a good listen and you can hear some real potential in someone who could easily put out an exciting mixtape in 2014. Holder could still use some perfecting on his flow, but it's nothing that dilutes the overall sound. Exciting and smooth can sum up this album, when Holder puts forth his lyrical best, you can hear it and it's actually quite great. I hope to hear more of this lyricism in future releases, until then, vibe to The Black Sheep and let me know what you think!