By: Brandon Beharry
It’s always healthy for a hip-hop artist to leave their listeners feeling hungry between projects. That being said; for some artists, leaving your fans starving may not always work in your favor.
It’s been a very long time since we last heard from the Badmon. That’s not to say he hasn’t been keeping busy though, making numerous guest appearances on other rapper’s records and collecting acting credits from USA Network’s critically acclaimed Mr. Robot series and Hulu’s Wu-Tang inspired web-series, among other shows. However, three years absent of any solowork can feel like a decade in today’s quick-consumption culture. Especially with as much that’s happened just this year alone, it feels like hip-hop as an entity has been aching for a socially-conscious rapper as talented as Joey to get on the mic and let us know what’s on his mind.
Joey opens his 3-song package (NOT an EP, which he made very clear via his twitter account) with the title track, The Light. Produced by East Coast legend Statik Selectah with a looped sample off Jedi Mind Trick’s, I Against I, the song serves as a simple yet strong introduction to the recurring thematic of light and darkness that are beamed throughout this project.
Right off the bat, Joey owns up to his recent absence from the game and attributes it on a loss of light within himself. “I admit it, I was gone for a lil' minute / It's like I lost my glow, yo, my inner light was dimmin' / Now I got my mojo back, y'all don't know how to act / I'm 'bout to blackout, I never back out”. An homage to a similar lyric off the closing song of his last solo album, it’s fitting that it’s used on the opening of this project to announce a return, rather than a goodbye.
The beat here is smooth and straightforward and it does good on accentuating the effortless nature of Joey’s flow while also allowing plenty of space for the self-reflective lyrics to stay with you.
With production from Swizz Beatz and a feature from King Push himself, the round of applause that kicks off No Explanation is earned to say the least, and excuse my poor taste in puns but unneeding from any explanation that any other song title could’ve offered. The hint of flamenco-flavored piano keys in the instrumental combined with Joey’s subtle Spanish flexing go a long way into creating the almost Cartel-like atmosphere that we ended up with on this song. Push and Joey rap like two retired Dons boasting about their illegitimate earnings at the fiesta. Tequila in one hand, pen in the other.
Push shows his respect for the trend that Joey started on this project with using the imagery of light and darkness by declaring himself “the blacklight”, the main implication here being that only he can shine light on his past crimes and expose himself for the criminal that he was and still is. By far the most energetic track here, No Explanation gleams from start to finish with an arrogant and condescending energy that only MCs as confident as Joey and Push could emit. If there was only room for one feature on this painfully short project, I’m glad that that spot went to someone as capable as Push.
Joey closes off The Light Pack with another laid back banger from Statik Selectah in Shine. You can tell right away how comfortable Joey is, floating on a funky jazz instrumental like this one. It’s familiar territory for the Brooklyn MC and it’s a welcome return to form for longtime fans who grew up on 1999 and PEEP: The aPROcalypse as their first mix-tapes. A shift in direction from the increasingly aggressive nature of the last two songs on this project, Shine incorporates both vocal and instrumental samples from Roy Ayer’s “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” to give the track a more warm and relaxed undercurrent. It’s a good song to cruise around your neighborhood to on a hot summer day.
The Light Pack is a difficult project for me to review. From a technical standpoint, I don’t see how anybody can have any qualms with it. Every one of the three songs here are great and I know for a fact that at least two of them will be staying on my heavy rotation for the rest of the year. While it’s not exactly breaking any new ground for the Badass, I wouldn’t really look at that as a bad thing. For me it’s just refreshing to hear Joey approach something of his own with a clear focus again.
Nevertheless, the entitled fan buried inside of me can’t help but feel annoyed that Joey thought one song for every year of absence would be enough to hold his fans over. Maybe this is just a teaser for something else though and something big is soon on the way (I sure hope so). Ultimately, The Light Pack ends up listening like the first quarter of a very strong AOTY contender. But instead of just leaving you hungry for more, it sadistically teases you with it’s 8 minute runtime and leaves you desperately refreshing your phone to complete the album that never really was. Fuck, I need a new Joey Bada$$ album.
You can watch the video for Joey Bada$$’s The Light below: