Review Summary: When Part 2 drops, will she still only be halfway there?
Half Way There…Pt. 1 is the first, and currently the only EP (not album, as it sometimes gets classified as due to having eight tracks) by San Jose rapper Snow Tha Product. Despite having one studio album, four compilations, and several mixtapes under her belt, at the time of my writing this review, this is her only release available on Spotify that is not a single (which she has several of). As someone who is not a fan of the growing phenomenon of hip-hip and pop artists frequently releasing non-album singles, I decided to give the EP a listen without having heard any of her other songs. I was met with a group of tracks that are fun, catchy and danceable, but also have a rags to riches narrative woven throughout, most notably in the two interludes.
The opening track,
No Cut, begins with a minute of sound clips featuring various radio hosts and interviewers, some expressing their feelings about how underrated of an artist Snow is, and others expressing doubt in her ability. Snow then proceeds to rap, quickly and seemingly ahead of the beat, about how she was able to come up through hard work, and hard work alone, without selling sex, or selling her soul. The second track,
Nights, shows the duality of the EP; beginning with a melodic hook sung by W. Darling, followed by Snow rapping about being in the club, lonely, and looking for something or someone to fill the void. The beat on this track, unlike the opener, is something that one could easily dance to, and has that dark sort of "tonight's going to be the night" vibe that anyone who has ever gone downtown on the weekend is familiar with.
Half Way There…Pt. 1 alternates between these serious tracks and danceable ones. The two interludes,
Too Much and
Too Much to Take, are both minute-long endeavors about different points in Snow's life that have caused her anxiety. The other four tracks are fun and far less serious, and showcase Snow's ability to hold her own on a hook, as well as her ability to rap in Spanish just as easily if not more so than in English. After a quick twenty-two minutes, the EP ends, and if you're like me, you begin to wonder if and when there will be a
Half Way There Pt. 2.
The last point I want to bring up about this EP that I find interesting is that while Snow Tha Product has her own record label (Product Entertainment) and boasts herself to be a completely independent artist, she actually released
Half Way There…Pt. 1 through Atlantic Records, which is a major label. I don't say this to call her a hypocrite; rather, I believe that this has something to do with why this EP is on Spotify and a lot of her other music is not. Snow has been somewhat vocal but not entirely detailed about the difficulty she's had with getting her music out there, and I think that this brief partnership with Atlantic Records was a step in the right direction, for at the very least she gained one new fan out of it. As for the future of Snow, I'm rooting for her to find a way to get the rest of her music on streaming platforms, and continue to do what she does best – stay hot without melting.
