ii

I feel like I might be missing something here. Denzel is my GOAT and I have been especially excited for this for quite a long time now. KOTMSII was just too light on the Denzel side of things for me to really appreciate fully and then the label tape from earlier this year I enjoyed quite a bit but still ran into the same problem. Not enough Denzel. Seeing this release, I thought I was blessed by the heavens and tbh, It didn't land with me like I hoped it would. It's still good with songs I really enjoy like "CANDLELIGHT", "PRODUCT", and "COLD NIGHT IN HELL", but I don't think some of the production was my forte. Some of the beats, while unique as hell, feel awkward to me to a point where it gets rid of any possibility for me to enjoy Denzel's rapping. "GONE FISHING", "EVIL GRIN", "UPS", "BENJAMIN" all have this issue. "DIFFERENCE" is pretty good too but I'm not a supporter of Yebba and her vocal style. Takes me out of it. If I could somehow split my rating, I would say Denzel: 100, everyone else: 50. Unfortunately, the "everyone else" aspect is pretty prevalent in this. It might sound like I'm hating pretty hard but I still enjoyed it overall. I just have a super high bar for Denzel considering how much I love his work pre-2023.