Saturday, June 6, 2015

Gold Standard by Supastition


     North Carolina emcee Supastition has been one of the more talented and underrated rhymers in the industry since he first broke through the airwaves in 2002 with his album 7 Years of Bad Luck. Now, thirteen years later, he is still as sharp as ever, and just recently released his brand new album Gold Standard which features Kenn Starr, Boog Brown, Audessey, and Supastition's group, Soundsci, and production from Praise, Croup, MoSS as well as a few others. On paper, this project looked to be another staple in his string of quality releases since he returned to rap, but did it live up to the expectations? Let's find out!

     If you were to pick one song from each of Supa's many releases, you'd quickly notice how consistent he is in his lyrical sound. He will always have hard hitting lines, high caliber stories and metaphors, and an extremely sophisticated delivery. By now, all of those qualities should be assumed when Supa announces he has new music, and that's inevitable. However, his consistent sonority equates to Gold Standard sounding like something he's already made, which is by no means a knock against the album, because the music is pretty freaking good, it's just that his past work sounds very similar to this, which is good, it just doesn't quite set this body of work aside from his others in the grand scheme of things.

     Since that's out in the air, I can now talk about what Gold Standard consists of, and why even though it's a sound Supa has unofficially trademarked, people should still listen to this project. For starters, the lyrical content on this ten-track arrangement is much more advanced than anything on the radio. Supa is a wonderful lyricist, and he contorts his thoughts and ideas into these well written raps when broken down. This album has a few tracks that illuminate that statement, such as "End of Forever" and my personal favorite "The Day After" which is a awesome sequel to his 2013 single "Best Worst Day" aka a masterpiece in its own right. 

     Not only does Gold Standard hold such pristine lyricism, but one can't help but notice Supastition's noteworthy delivery, and although I'm sure I compliment him on this aspect of his craft every time his music is posted on the site, it is something that separates him from the zillions of other rappers that there are in the world. Lastly, I did say that Gold Standard sounds too much like his past work for it to differentiate in any way, it would, however, be remiss of me to not state that some of his best lyrical deliveries can be found on this release.

     In terms of the production work, Supa used a number of producers, though he largely worked with Praise, and this pairing was a pleasant surprise as their sounds blended in a way that displayed both the producer and emcee's individual talent, on a cohesive basis. It sounds complex, but really it's just two artists that were on the same page time and time again. Additionally, I should note that there were no beats that really blew me away or stole the show on any singular track, rather all of the instrumentals used meshed well with Supa's uniform sound.

     One of the best beats on Gold Standard can be found on the track "Song for the Mrs" which interestingly enough was produced by Praise. This beat is smooth, serene, and great. It's hard to top that.

     All in all, Gold Standard is a very good album that all of the various styles of hip-hop heads can enjoy. This album excellently displays one of Supa's better attributes; his flow, and even has some really solid story-telling tracks on it as well. Be that as it may, this album still sounds far too much like many of Supa's past projects, which only hurts the short-term value of the album, because in five, ten, or fifteen years when someone looks at his catalog as a whole, Gold Standard will rightfully be labeled as a damn good album.


5 comments:

  1. I'll get the privilege of playing with Supastition this coming August.Sadly I haven't heard anything from him before, but according to you this seems as good a starting point as any. (Note I know it's as easy and googling the title, but it would be nice to click a direct link from the article to songs you referenced from his past work as your favorite)

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  2. This album is extremely dope! Very hard beats, incredible writing. I kinda didint expect anything this...well, hard from supastition. lol. I love the short but sweet album model people seem to be going to lately kinda like Prhyme.

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  3. Thanks for the input T! I'll deff start doing that, and would love to watch that show!

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  4. Well said man! thanks for checking out the post!

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  5. Always trying to help. It's going to be a good time. Us two and Rhymersayers Blueprint.

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