BrothaMans Sings Them Nice And Slow On Chapter 1
The singing is great; the rapping's not.
Tired of the bullshit around him, BrothaMans sings about wanting his peace and slowing down on 'Escape', the first track on his new album, Chapter 1.
Brotha Mans draws out phrases like 'slow down', 'relax' and ‘no regrets', among others.
'I just want my peace. Can I get some peace ’cause I'm tired of the bullshit?’, he sings.
Tired of the bullshit
BrothaMans is a jack of all trades, if you judge him by 'Escape': he sings all the parts in the song.
The second track off the album, 'Mind Reader', opens with the words ‘truth is best served called. I smile as I li​​sten to him sing. He's so chilled, and it's so sexy and liberating to hear a guy sing, especially when all musicians rap these days.Â
'Tell me what you want', he sings, in a rhythmic song sung over a beautiful beat, 'I'll give you what you need'. It's an awesome track. Half singing and half rap-like singing. The song is addressed to a woman, which is good, I guess, but the only fault is that the song finishes whilst you're still enjoying it.
On 'It's Over’, the third song off the album, BrothaMans is sad, angry, bitter and hopeless. A woman has done him bad. Again the song has singing and rapping, a beautiful combo if you will.
‘Try to smoke my pain away’.
The fourth track on the album is titled 'Chillin [Over Again]. Again, I'm impressed by the singing, but on this song, the singing's different. More like crooning is BrothaMans on this track. What suffers, though, is the clarity of the words. You have to listen closely to hear what he's singing about, but doing just that might not be enough.Â
That it's a chilled album is the feeling I get when I'm listening to 'Soul Food', the fifth track on the album. The song is chilled to the point of being pedantic. On this number, addressed to a lady, BrothaMans sings about not needing Netflix to chill. The song reminds me of Dead Prez (‘African princess, tell me your interest’.)
I'm disappointed in the storytelling, however. The story's not big to my liking, if Brothamans builds it at all. And before you have a picture of what the story's about, the song finishes. Â I'm reminded of the joke about a guy who lived to a hundred even though he smoked a cigarette a day. I think the dude joked that had he smoked two cigarettes that wouldn't have made him live up until two hundred. I guess even if we gave BrothaMans more time, he wouldn't be able to spin an epic story. But that's me being very critical. And harsh to a point. I guess I'm reminded of the cigarette joke having listened to BrothaMans open 'Soul Food' with the words 'no smoke'.
Another same old critique is some of the words not being audible.
'Switch it up', BrothaMans sings in ‘Arcade’, a song whose playful instruments impress me. Also the singing. Just puts a smile on your face.Â
'We belong... together... forever...' If you can read the ellipses, perhaps they show how BrothaMans drags, or spaces, his words. This is singing, remember. Very much unlike rapping, where rappers are too fast and in a hurry. Where to, you can never tell.
'Arcade' makes references of entertainment games. But the song, or singer, goes one up as he sings about the games people play in relationships, with those involved being 'player one' and 'player two'.
I listened to the unmastered version of the album. I note this because in 'Arcade', there's no more singing after about two minutes forty seconds although the song is four-minute long. It's an eerie feeling. You think the song's over when it actually isn't.
Slow, or chilled, singing makes the basis of Chapter 1. But that all changes on 'Make It Out', the ninth song of the album. Fast rapping makes the basis of this song. You'd feel the song's out of place here. This is not the BrothaMans you meet in 'Escape' or any other song before this one.
These words in 'Make It Out' are arresting:Â
Life is what you make it
You've just gotta take it
If the rapping distracts you, you'll miss him rapping about chains and Django. You'll miss him rapping about bringing in the bacon and making references to David and Goliath.Â
It's going down in the East Side, Brothamans sings in 'Tonight', the eighth song on Chapter 1. The AutoTuning in this song is jarring, considering the fact that BrothaMans is an awesome singer sans the computer.Â
The last track has an interesting title: 'Brothamans Living Legend'. If you're wondering exactly what BrothaMans is singing or rapping about in this song, at least the beat is amazing. You can jam to it without being overwhelmed by trying to make sense of the words.
And if the album is devoid of 'great topics', like I said earlier, my mind changes after listening to 'Brothamans Living Legend' for the second time. The lyrics go like: 'I don't wanna die; if I ever do, baby don't you ever cry: I'm just singing the blues'.Â
My verdict? I love the singing in the album. At times the rapping and singing gel, but fail at times. The songwriting could have been better or more ambitious. If I had ten stars, I'd give it sevenÂ
You can buy the album here: