Review Summary: Juicy J builds it up, Project Pat knocks it down
Brothers Juicy J and Project Pat, two of the head honchos in charge of Hypnotize Minds, have gotten together a couple of weed carriers together and made some phat beats and put together a mixtape under the name
Cut Throat. While their weed-carriers share that same feeling of inferiority throughout most all of their raps (other than the surprisingly hungry feature from former Wayne syrup holder Brisco), and the occasional fault in songwriting,
Cut Throat is oddly consistent and flowing for a mixtape, and creates the impression of effort from both rappers.
Cut Throat officially starts off smoothly and fiercely with “Mobbin”, with beats that sounds like a re-tread back
Mystik Stylez era Three 6, moving in a slow, swirling, doomy funeral walk. The first couple of tracks keep up this similar mood, Juicy J and Project Pat paint a gloomy picture of the streets of Memphis. It becomes clear on tracks like “I Play Robber”, “What You Know About”, and “Talk ***” that the best strengths of Juicy J is the fact that he can create certain images, whether it’s his hungry-enough-to-bite-your-face-off flow and tone of voice, or his dreary, dark beats that make up a bulk of the album. Juicy J’s rapping is completely literal, rarely relying on the wild invention of the punchline for his rapping, and much rather relies on the listener hearing the reality in his voice and lyrics.
Project Pat, on the other side of thing, is the much more lyrical side of things. While Juicy J creates all the images the album needs, he does none of the clever punchlines that really hit it home for rap fans, and that’s why Project is brought onto the scene (“Yellow and red chain poppin, call it orville redenbacher” is one of the more clever lines on the album, and a good example of the type of lines Project Pat writes). Project Pat plays the brother that likes to party, and probably inspires most of the party songs, which may explain the filler of the album. Project Pat’s party inspirations, however, bring in “Ike Turner Pimpin”, one of the albums best song. “Ike Turner Pimpin” has some of the most inspired, funky, wondrous celebratory beats of the entire record, and brings in the smooth baritone of Slim Thug, and contains some of the albums most hilarious lines of the entire record (“you were supposed to do with this dough, you dumber than C-Note/ I left you a six-fig, you blew at the CASINO!” is funnier on record). However his hilarious musings can’t save such tracks as the uninspiring club bounce of “Break It Down” and “Twerk”, and although punchlines still astound on these tracks (“Twerk” in particular), they falter because of incredibly inferior lyricism from Juicy J.
However other than obvious complaints laid upon mixtapes, such as annoying DJs, terrible fade-ins, and tracks fading right into each other,
Cut Throat is more consistent and sounds more like a full-length album than a mixtape. With a consistent southern sound, and a mixture between old Three 6’s funeral horror rap and new Three 6’s bouncy club/coke anthems,
Cut Throat is one of the top mixtapes and, possibly, rap albums of the year.
