Jackboys 2 Album Review: Travis Scott needs better music to play at his India concert

Indian Express

6 days ago

Jackboys 2 Album Review: Everyone loves a good hip-hop group. It's quite apparent that the entire genre would never have been so polarising, controversial or iconic if it weren't for groups like the NWA, Wu-Tang Clan, Run DMC, D12 and more. Jackboys is a group consisting of rappers and producers who belong to Travis Scott's record label Cactus Jack, including Don Toliver, Sheck Wes, Chase B, SoFaygo and Scott himself. When the group announced themselves in 2019 with an album of the same name, no one was really hoping for the next hip-hop revolution. But now they have come out with a brand new project, and drumroll please….. it's the same songs they have been making for over a decade, and nothing has changed. One could say that Travis is trying to channel his inner Ice Cube in the sense that his 'art is a reflection of his reality', but if Travis' reality only contains blingy cars, questionable lyrics, money, and cocaine, well then he better start practising his older hits for when he comes to India, because no one wants to listen to this.
Now don't get me wrong; the album isn't all trash. Actually, it's much better tied together than the previous Jackboys album. The 2019 album had an idea, but like any great thought that hits you at 1 am in the morning when you have been drinking lean for the past 4 hours, it vanished. The thought was incomplete, and except for that one TikTok trend, nothing truly came out of that entire project. Jackboys 2 starts on a good note though, with Scott relying on his evergreen cadence and tried-and-tested flow that made him successful enough to walk out of the Grammys when he lost to Cardi B. The track number 2, '2000 Excursion', is a direct reference to the car Ford Excursion and how the rap group Three 6 Mafia (who hated flying) actually would only use this huge car to go around the country without having to worry about customs agents asking, 'What's in the cup?' After a confusing first verse by Scott, we hear a very interesting beat switch which is completely botched by Sheck Wes talking about the amount of women he has on his payroll (it was much less civilised than this). Don and Scott give it another attempt and sound like kids who just figured out the auto-tune function on their karaoke set.
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Sir 21 Savage features on the next track, and Scott's first verse on the song is his best contribution to the album till now. Solid similes, strong references and catchy flow all make up for a good first half, but due to that ever-growing obsession with doing something different (while ending up making the same thing), the beat of the song switches again before Savage lays down probably his weakest verse, and you know why? Because he literally keeps repeating his name and three other words. For reasons unbeknownst to this humble listener, Scott just wanted to write 21 Savage as a feature without actually giving him a verse. He is technically from across the pond, but that is a cold-hearted thing to do to Kylie Jenner's fourth favourite rapper who has tattoos on his face. The next track, 'Dumbo', is a reference to whoever decides to listen to this song for the second time, because even when Scott actually starts rapping, by then it's too little and too late. The next track is a solo by Faygo, and it is the musical representation of that one guy who swears he could have been a professional athlete if his parents would have supported him but is always injured to play in the office tournament.
'Velour' is a decent attempt by Toliver and Sheck, but it takes too long to build up for a 'decent' track; I can wait that long for a 'Yosemite' or even an 'Enzo', but the actual verse by the two artistes — not worth the wait. We then move on to 'Contest', where Scott gives Faygo a chance to redeem himself, but it is repetitive bars with no meaning at all. 'ILMB' is a strong car playlist song, and except for the hook of the song, which you can't really play in front of your parents, partner, family members, or anyone else you know, it's fine. Now 'Where Was You' came as a song that was highly recommended to me before I got a chance to listen to this album, and the instrumental of the track is something I can truly back. The Japanese strings, which sound like a shamisen, take the simple and effective beat to a whole new level. For the first time in the album, a song isn't completely dependent on Scott, and if you like Future's style of delivery or Playboi Carti's bars, this is probably the track you should save from the album. Carti raps like someone who knows their last project was bad, and Future just lays back and drops a verse which he probably thought of while walking the stairs to the studio.
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Toliver gives his best performance of the album on 'No Comments', as he sticks to what he knows and is able to build a pretty catchy track from there. By the time you start reaching the end of this album, you start noticing a very apparent pattern that actually says a lot about the people involved. While the verses are inconsistent, often shallow, and overproduced, the backing tracks of all songs are genuinely good. It's the quality of the backing track that keeps you from skipping some of these songs, and the track 'Beep Beep' is a great example of this. Another problem with this album is that the artistes think that putting voice notes before and after every other song will make this project more profound. People listen to the voice notes on Kendrick or J. Cole's album because the songs are actually good. Paul's Skit is an actual recognisable phenomenon because Eminem is considered to be the greatest rapper of all time.
Scott often talks about the rapper Kid Cudi and how he was his biggest inspiration while growing up, and I think that is the root of this problem. Scott listened to Cudi and became a rapper, but the newer artists like Faygo are listening to Scott. While Scott's influence cannot be denied, he isn't the kind of rapper who would release a song like Pac's 'Dear Mama' or Eminem's 'Sing For The Moment'. He isn't really saying anything, and it gives rise to a generation that is listening to rappers talking about only superficial things, the kind of things which have become such damaging stereotypes for the entire genre. A lot of the 'modern-day' rap music is beguiling in nature, because even though some of the sounds are attractive, the lack of substance is harrowing and problematic.
But instead of putting the responsibility of changing the world on Scott's shoulders, I think everyone involved with the genre need to have their back up. To give an example of the most 'loved' artist of this generation, Drake, who delivers a 'Churchill Downs' for every 'Hotline Bling', giving the audiences and the budding generation of artistes something to aspire to. Jackboys 2 is a project with a few hits and a lot of misses, but mostly it's an album which doesn't compel you for a revisit. Nothing hits you so hard so that you pause it midway and call your friends to talk about it, the mark of a great album, which Jackboys 2 doesn't achieve. The only thing even more disappointing than the album is the fact that you will have to listen to the songs all over your Instagram for the next 6 months until J Cole decides to make music again and Drake decides to make money again.