Childish Gambino - Royalty (2012)
When this dropped, I wasn't really big into mixtapes and never checked it out, and I don't know why. I mean, I loved "Camp" at the time and even got into the first "I Am Just a Rapper" mixtape, so it really is something I just don't understand. Anyhow, after a mostly featureless "Camp", this mixtape is filled to the brim with guest features worth giving a shit about, like RZA, Ghostface Killah, Danny Brown, and the list goes on to even include Beck, Chance the Rapper, and Top Dawg Entertainment's very own Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q, so it basically has everything on paper to be a great mixtape that you'd say "And I got this FOR FREE?!" but really, none of the songs are that great. Sure, there are a few small highlights, like "One Up (feat. Steve G. Lover)" which features Childish Gambino's brother, and also a REALLY subtle sample of the Xbox Guide menu opening and closing for the beat, which is pretty fucking brilliant, but a lot of these songs just don't really feel like they accomplish much at all, or even hit that hard. There's everything here needed to make a great mixtape to throw a big middle finger at the haters like "FUCK YOU, I'M THE SHIT" but it just never kicks off the way that you'd probably expect it to. Cool idea, cool features, and a few songs worth throwing in a "shuffle" playlist, if anything, especially for the ability to occasionally hear the Bun B rap in "R.I.P. (feat. Bun B)" with its incredibly unfitting beat + hook for him that somehow works, even though the cuts sound like my computer is fucking up, but you'll probably end up forgetting that this exists in Childish Gambino's discography.
6/10
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