If you missed the latest Rich the Kid release, The World is Yours, you’d be forgiven. After spending the last month hyping up his debut album on Twitter, Rich’s dreams were crushed as The Weeknd and Tyler the Creator dropped an EP and a track respectively. Could The World is Yours defy the odds and be the strongest release of the day? Disappointingly no.
The opening track, The World is Yours, is a strange choice to greet listeners. The spacey, atmospheric backdrop doesn’t do anything to set the tone of the album, and it’s slower tempo would have made it better suited to close out the album. Rich’s typical flow doesn’t synergise well over the dreamy female vocals, which is a problem repeated later with Early Morning Trapping, and certainly isn’t the track that he should have chosen to demonstrate his rapping ability. It’s then contrasted by Rich’s most successful single yet, New Freezer, which debuted at 75 on the billboard 100 in 2017. It’s easy to see why, between the electric instrumental and insatiably catchy bass, coupled with the feature from Kendrick Lamar giving it much needed endorsement. Undoubtedly an unpopular opinion, but I personally find some of Kendrick’s guest verses to be a little jarring, due to his unique sound, and this is no exception; regardless, it’s technically fine and doesn’t detract massively for me. The rest of the first third of the album is also a mixed bag; the beat of No Question by mikewillmadethis is bouncy and catchy, but Rich and Future fail to capitalize on this with repetitive and ultimately forgettable verses. Plug Walk is a really strong offering, and doesn’t rely on a guest feature as a crutch, yet it’s followed by Too Gone, a weak attempt at a radio hit with a below average feature from Khalid and short, shallow verses from Rich.
The middle of the album is decent but nothing to phone home about. Some tracks, like Lost it and Early Morning Trapping stand out as better, but not by much, and in both cases is largely due to the guest vocals and darker beats; it would be hard to ruin a song which is produced by Metro Boomin and has two verses from Offset and Quavo. Listen Up’s beat is also refreshing as the album begins to draw to a close. The biggest problem that consistently plagues the album is Rich’s same flow on every track. It’s forgivable on a smaller project but almost an hour of it over 14 tracks grows dull fast. Perhaps it would have been compelling if Rich had stepped out of his comfort zone and attempted a different flow; even if it was technically worse, it would still be a welcome change.
In my eyes The World is Yours is well in the realm of average, not because it’s filled with average songs, but because the range in quality is so drastic from track to track, from trash to certified bangers. The production is the best it’s ever been on any of Rich’s work yet, it’s littered with big name guest verses, yet I fear that it’s being held back by a lack of creativity. Overall, this Kid’s submission in my eyes is a firm C -.
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