Taylor Bennett - Be Yourself EP

Taylor Bennett
Be Yourself EP
2018
Spotify

Taylor Bennett is Chance the Rapper's brother. He's been featured on Chance's records in the past and has had his Big Brother pushing for his success from day one. The problem is this feels like a little brother's album. It's inspired by all the things Chance has done over his career, but is only a pale shadow of them. His flow is often faster than Chance's but it doesn't feel all that profound, just quick. Taylor makes a mistake in playing in the exact same field as Chance and ensuring that everything He does will be compared. Almost every track has a feature and you truly feel like you get almost zero of Taylor Bennett on this record. Who is He? How is He different from Chance? These should be the questions He squashes from the jump so that we can experience his creativity without all the sibling baggage. Young Thug makes a decent appearance on "Better Than You Ever Been" but the bright fun beat makes his whole Slime Season vibe feel totally watered down. "Everything I Can't Have" is an interesting base for a track, digging in to the things you can;t have either because of money or emotional state. Bennett's flow though sounds clunky and disjointed, the beat is also old old old sounding like it is straight out of the 90s. Bennett finally goes into his uphill battle with critics on "Know Yourself (Outro)" and puts his flow on display, but it lands with a bit of a thud.

You keep looking for some reason to listen to this album over anything else, but Taylor is never convincing enough. The last track is classified as an outro, but no clue why because it seems just like a normal ass song. There are a few beats here that have interesting elements, but as a whole it's all stuff we've heard before. Don't even get me started on when He sings, god it's bad. His falsetto is so rough it makes you want to claw your ears out. When Chance does that sort of off key singing it's endearing but here it is annoying as all hell. There just is not enough exciting things going on to pull Taylor Bennett's music out from being just some small form of nepotism. You can't fault Taylor Bennett for going for it, but man this record needs some major help.

3.9 out of 10