Yea Big: The Wind That Blows The Dandelion’s Seeds
Of course the burgeoning scene of indie hip hop is something to take notice of right now. The underground hip hop world is quickly evolving into the new “mainstream” and artists are popping up all over the globe. A variety of genres are evolving in the underground scene: alternative, trip-hop, conscious, etc. The latter is probably the most convoluted hip hop subgenre to tackle and become a part of for various reasons. First and foremost, a conscious rapper has to have viable subject matter to rap about. Secondly, a conscious rapper has to deliver said subject matter in a creatively appealing and stimulating way. This was what one would expect from an album with such an interestingly deep title like The Wind That Blows The Dandelion’s Seeds, but Yea Big managed to jam-pack an album full of nonsensical flows, blatant remarks and drab vocals, all in the name of “conscious hip hop.”
In a guesstimated effort to sound out-of-this-worldly, Yea Big opens up the album with, literally, a track full of noise. Kind of like a set of broken, glitchy computer speakers, the track “We Start With Awareness of Our Ignorance” has nothing to do with anything. There are no words pointing out ignorance in society, nor do any words utter anything about awareness. With that track done, the listener may have a bad mindset about the album but the drop of the drums on “This We Must Do” quickly reengages you.
But the production can not save the album. I was appalled at the ghastly rapping Yea Big provided. Shouting the same phrase over and over again does not account for a rap song; this album proves to be more of a spoken-word project than a conscious hip hop record. Yea Big means well by his words of encouragement, honest scrutiny and reasonable complaints, but he puts forth these words in the most abhorrent of ways. Almost every song features about four bars of actual lyrics, they are simply repeated over and over again and, at times, layered in a distasteful and dissonant manner.
“What We Will” is truly the “skippable track of the year” winner. It is purely the awkward flow of Yea Big and the unintelligible way he utters his rhymes that really distracts from the good moral messages the album contains. Picture a high school, creative writing class student reading his poem he wrote on a lunchroom napkin right before class so he didn’t get a failing grade, all while the school jazz bands jam on stage behind him. This blundering, cluttered combination of sounds clash together on nearly every track and completely eliminate any hope of enjoying a nice hip hop song.
Unfortunately, Yea Big botched his attempt at a revolutionary conscious hip hop album. If it weren’t for the live-like production, The Wind That Blows The Dandelion’s Seeds could not be saved. Yea Big needs to reconsider how he writes his rhymes and maybe study some conscious hip hop artists who know a thing or two about really writing a good hip hop track (see Dead Prez) before his next record.
Rating: 1.5/10
MP3: Yea Big “What You Don’t Know”
Buy: iTunes
