Friday, February 28, 2014

Black Hystori Project- CyHi The Prynce


The first time that I heard CyHi The Prynce, I was driving around with the radio on. The local college radio was playing ‘The Morning’ from the Cruel Summer album G.O.O.D. Music put out a while ago. At first, I wasn’t really paying attention to the song at first, and then CyHi’s verse came on, and it was great. His race card line was hilarious to me, and one of the first things I did when I got back to my computer was look up what that song was and whose verse just floored me. CyHi The Prynce is a very frustrating performer to me, because for every verse on ‘The Morning’ he has, he has about two garbage songs that rap about the same stale subjects. I’ve listened to his previous mixtapes, and they all are hit and miss, with some really good material and a great flow hidden between the same clichés. Then I saw that his new mixtape was coming out.

Black Hystori Project looked different. It looked dark; I thought maybe CyHi would surprise me with a solid mixtape before he dropped his debut album. But, unfortunately, I found this to be a pretty uneven album. I feel like CyHi The Prynce is having an identity crisis; he either wants to be a conscious rapper, or he wants to do retreads of the same money cash hoes anthems. Some songs on this mixtape are great; ‘Bury White’ for example is a great song painting a portrait of the effects of crack cocaine on the inner city. It does it in such a clever and deceptive way; at first everything seems fine and life is good, and then the façade starts to peel away and reveal the ugly truth. I also liked the song ‘Cydel Young’, in which he raps about his past in the marijuana trade, though the egomaniacal chorus was a bit much. I think the ego is some of the problem. His executive producer and boss Kanye West is definitely rubbing off. Kanye at one time did write some decent lyrics: ‘All Falls Down’ comes to mind. However, he is now so in love with himself and resorts only to brag raps about money, blatant product whoring, and mysogynism. I feel like CyHi might be going down this road a bit. His verse on ‘Guitar Melody’ sounded like something Big Sean (the genius who brought us a song whose entire chorus is one long repetition of the word ‘ass’) might rap about, and his ego reaches epic proportions on ‘Mandela’, where he compares himself to the late pioneer for South African freedom from Apartheid. Who does that?

He also has a ton of mixed messages in his music. If he ‘does this for Basquiat’ and does not care about money, fame, or radio play, why in the next song is he bragging about money and fame as if they are the only things in the world? And the song ‘Black Pride’, which by the title, I assumed would be a song in the conscious vein like ‘Bury White’, was anything but. Also, that screaming on ‘Huey’ got old really fast. I really hope he can turn his act around. I really think that CyHi The Prynce has potential; he has a pretty good flow that can change rhythm on a dime, and is a master of polysyllabic rhyme scheme. Some of his verse sound like tongue twisters with the amount of alliteration dripping off of them. But, unfortunately, the material he chooses to rap about has been done to death, and is not all that interesting. I believe if he went down the conscious rap direction like ‘Bury White’ and ‘Cydel Young’, he could make a great album. We’ll see what happens.


Out of a total of 5 stars, I give this:



Check in later in the week for my opinions on Kid Cudi's Satellite Flight: The Journey To Mother Moon.

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