Jehst originally was a great rapper (who did the odd production or two) who came on the scene with a new style. As time went on Jehst has more and more got into producing with him resulting to last year producing his whole EP “Nuke Proof Suit”. It wasn’t very consistent to be honest in both the production and lyrical departments. But this year instead of rapping over them Jehst has got a list of top UK rappers to spit over them.
This is a big shock as most of the beats are really consistent for being good. The first question rises to your head: Why didn’t Jehst use them or keep them for himself. I personally believe it’s to due to the artist style and preferences. The album begins with a bang with the lead single “Dunya (My World)” featuring the fast rising in the ranks Micall Parknsun. It sort of reminds you of his last album main single of “Run Hard” featuring on Falling Down. It reminds me due to the Asian type song he sampled. Parknsun’s lyrics aren’t really narrowed down but more free ranged. Judging from this you would fall quickly to an assumption from this that all off his production follows a basic formula. But you’re wrong!
The production really varies which is also a strong point for a production album. Though the “If You Were Me” has a sort of Jehst vibe it doesn’t stick to same old formula. If it’s the dark “Say Word” featuring Kashmere or the Soulful“Listen” featuring Sir Smurf Lil’, this album caters for all tastes. “Tempa Tempa” featuring the laid back *****y Verb T is a great different sounding beat from most on the market. My favourite has to be “Right Now” featuring Kyza who isn’t normally my taste but is one of my favourites at the moment. Kyza flows excellent over the sampled piano and delivers some deep stuff.
One song I do not really like as much (though it’s not that bad as most albums weaker song or two) is “Soldiers 4 Life (remix)” with the Universal Soldiers. The lyrics are nothing amazing but accompany the beat but the beat does nothing for me. A piano sampled some where before but used different and completed with hard drums. Also there is a lot of remixes of songs already released. Even though after one or two it does shows a skill of building a beat over vocals though you do feel a bit cheated after a few. I took this with a pinch of salt as this album was more about Jehst’s production. Some of the remixes I prefer to the original. The “Money in the bank (remix)” (which should be labelled “Money in the bank (remix remix)”. The original had a different Jehst beat which had the same sort of flavour but I’m feeling this more. You can forget the marvellous job he did for the remix of Rodney P’s “Future”. With the organ and drums it gives it a old school funky feel (which suits him again as he was a pioneer of UK Hip hop)
There’s two more remixes both equally enjoyable but not much I could go into explaining. In all this gets 4 out of 5 on the border of 4.5.
Even though production wise Jehst worked his arse of and got a list of A star rappers these are my flaws.
I thought on the album apart from 1 weaker song they all pretty bang on. With only 11 tracks you expect them all to be on point like Illmatic. Again some may feel cheated on the fact it’s filled with remixes but you got to remember this is a production album. One flaw which I haven’t said is maybe Jehst could have brought in some less well known names but I suppose he wants to sell more units and has to keep it tight with the lowlife records.
Recommendation: Buy this album! One of the best this year and one of my favourites (maybe even my favourite)