Review Summary: Weezy's third protege will not come close to the super star heights of Drake and Nicki Minaj; he's the first truely disposable product off of the Young Money assembly line.
When Lil Wayne released the compilation album for his new record label, Young Money Entertainment, it was obvious who his two brightest protégés would be. After Drake and Nicki Minaj reached super-star status, it could be anyone’s guess who was next in line among the faceless horde of disposable artists that littered the We Are Young Money compilation. Tyga was chosen and marks the point where the label will stop pumping out pop stars and begin its assembly line production of faceless albums to keep the brand going. In 2008, Tyga got his first shot with help of cousin and Gym Class Heroes leader Travie McCoy. The album, No Introduction, flopped hard, and if Tyga did not find his way to Young Money very few would have known it ever existed.
Tyga is a rapper who strives to hit the charts, yet doesn’t have enough personality to do it as much as label mates Wayne, Drake, and Nicki do. He is quite aware of this evidenced by how he just dabbles in their styles that have won them huge and loyal fan bases. His label has provided him with great beats and many serviceable guest features, and these are the main attractions on this album. Tyga, while limited in ability, for the most part does not muster up anything memorable enough to ruin the material he is given, however on the flip side nothing is better than decent.
He is at his worst when he tries to steal the show from his collaborators. For example, on “Rack City”, the Lil Wayne-aping hypnotic strip club anthem, Tyga incessantly repeats the chorus of “rack city bitch, rack, rack city, bitch” for literary half of the song’s run time. This is chorus will worm its way into one’s brain quicker than anything else here do to sheer repetition and it has worked, as it is his only hit to date. Without it, this album would still most likely be waiting on a release date, yet no one will be listening to this in a couple months, thus his longevity entirely depends on how long he can ride the coat-tails of the label’s stars.
Tyga’s voice and cadence resembles Lil Wayne’s far more than Drake’s and Nicki’s. It’s how Wayne would sound if he garnered the nickname, “Weezy,” from sounding like he had a cold instead of sounding like an avid fan of drugs with a New Orleans drawl. Despite his vocal similarities most of this album splits hairs between Minaj’s cartoonish punch line pop-rap and Drake’s sing-songy introspection. The debauchery and vulgarity of Wayne’s influence is only heard on a few songs despite the popularity of “Rack City,” which would mislead one to thinking that is Tyga’s primary fare. However, Tyga does not have a signature style at all; he exists solely to keep the Young Money brand afloat never coming close to deviating outside the styles of his more popular label mates. Despite this incredible lack of originality and anything too memorable this is sure to please Young Money die-hards, a group that has become very large recently.
Rating - 5.5/10
