The East Side Boyz - All-Stars

The East Side Boyz
All-Stars
2016
Spotify

You did not read that wrong, The East Side Boyz released a new album. You might also be surprised to find no Lil Jon at the beginning of the name of this band group, and the album cover might also symbolize their departure from the King of Crunk. Here's the thing, even if this record came out in the early 2000s when Lil Jon and The east Side Boyz were at the height of their power, it still would not be that good. The beats are basic, the rhymes aren't much better and there are actually five skits. It's like no one gave The East Side Boyz the message that it is 2016 and that kind of stuff just is not cool anymore. Even when they take a stab at a modern sounding song like on "All I Want" it is like someone pretending to be into trap, there is almost no authenticity. On "Crunk Is What U Want" which is an excruciating five minutes and twenty-two seconds what little rapping there is just gets consumed by the same group of people repeating the title over and over until we all die. the song isn't just bad it is horrible. The spiral continues into "Dribble Deez Balls" which probably does not need much explaining. Each track is more of a slog than the last with very few songs under four minutes, and really not much meat on the bone to begin with. For many people the hip hop skit might be a lost art, and for good reason, they are never funny. The trend continues here with just a bunch of shout outs and plugs.

It is baffling the amount of money, time and work that probably went into this album to have this be the product. At some point you would expect someone to step in and say hey let's freshen up this sound, or trying something new, but nope so many people had to say yes and this is the result. There certainly is a place for throwback sounds or just some great old school hip hop but when you hear shit like this it borders on the offensive. "Totem Pole" (guess what they are talking about here) starts sounding like it will be a trap song, but as it goes the sound becomes less and less trapy not intentionally however they simply can't maintain the sound, so they just kind of ditch it. Outkast and the Dungeon Family always had a sound that was super creative and put the Atlanta sound on the map, this is just spitting in that legacy's face. Listening to this album is just under 50 minutes of my life that I will not be getting back. There really is not one redeeming quality on this album so please for the love of god do not waste your time with this absolute bullshit.

2.1 out of 10