Murs - Captain California

Murs
Captain California
2017
Spotify

When you hear that Tech N9ne's Strange Music label is going to release a new record you have to prepare yourself for something really weird. However this new record from California rapper Murs, for the most part is right down the middle. The beats sound like something from quite a few years ago and his style is really basic rap delivery. A lot was made of "GBKW (God Bless Kanye West" one of the singles off the record, which makes entirely no sense. In the song we get some vague recap of Kanye's life which instead of being biographical is more of a recap of the experience of an African American man in the music industry. The song seems so pointless and never really reaches any kind of conclusion. The songs on Captain California are very dense lyrically but in almost the most boring way possible. Nothing about this album feels modern, fresh or interesting but mostly just uninspired. "Xmas and Thanksgiving" has the line "She an all nite grinder/she done fucked 49 49ers/a couple Oakland Raiders/Ya know ball players" which is just laughably bad. When you make a song about a Woman who sells sex, like "Xmas and Thanksgiving" does you would expect it to have some kind of message or some twist to make it fun to listen to but Murs does none of that. For an album to have this much lyrical content and so little in terms of point or meaning is frustrating to say the least.

There is an element of G-funk throughout the album, but in the most dated way. YG was able to bring G-funk into 2017 with his record, but Murs makes no attempt like that. "1000 Suns" which is supposed to be some kind of Gangster rap love song is simply laughable. The allusions He makes are not clever but just kind of obvious. Reverie absolutely blows Murs away with her feature on "One Uh Those Days" making his verse and chorus sound laughable at best. You just don't buy anything that Mrus is selling, all of it seems suspect. "Animals Damnit" is one of the more decent tracks and a real stunner if you want to test out your subwoofers and Beleaf seems to be doing one of the worst Anderson .paak slash Mac Miller impressions we have heard. This record as a whole just feels totally uninspired, lacking in creativity and has more disdain for it's listeners than respect. Avoid this one like the plague, it sucks.

2.0 out of 10