Dee-1, New Orleans rapper and one of the most recognizable voices in the CHH genre to date presents to us his plans for the closing part of 2016. Over the past 2 years, Dee-1 has made some of the biggest moves as a former independent artist that can be compared to the strides Reach Records have made as a label. For being an independent artist for well over 5 years, it was insane to see his sign to one of the biggest labels in the music industry, RCA Records. Many people thought he was going to potentially become watered down about his faith because he signed with a label that signs other non-Christian artist. Dee-1 being true to God and himself, stuck to his guns and gave us the 3’s Up EP in mid February of 2015 and did not disappoint. The only thing that changed with him signing to RCA, is the quality of the music that is being put out. Since then, Dee-1 has released a few singles, music videos and was going to release another full length Mixtape “Separated At Birth,” but came across legal issues with it, so it was officially banned in 2015.
Being a very active member of the music industry, the ban on “Separated At Birth” didn’t stop Dee-1 from the main goal of putting out a full length LP with his new record. “The Slingshot David” LP is set to release in October of 2016 with a “The Slingshot David” EP set to release sometime in August of 2016. With all of this new music coming real soon from the New Orleans rapper, it’s not much of a surprise to see a bunch of reused songs on this new mixtape. Out of the 16 tracks on this project, 4 of them are interludes kind of going into the details of what the inspiration and motives of “The Slingshot David” project as a whole, 3 songs that he has previously released as singles this past year (Against Us Remix ft. Big K.R.I.T. and Lupe Fiasco, Sallie Mae Back, and Can’t Ban the Hopeman), a remix of a song he released a few years ago “O.D. on Life ft. Stalley,” and then 8 new songs that have not been heard yet that are evenly sprinkled throughout the project.
Now to be honest, I can’t be too mad at this new project for all of the fluff that is given to us because the songs that we do get are really good. They are personal, exciting, smooth and each one is very distinguishable individually and again with all of them having to very noticeable Dee-1 southern accent. Listening to it all the way through was surprisingly very easy, since I’m an individual who is not very used too Dee-1’s music. It was fun to have the high energy and anthem like songs of Sallie Mae Back and No Car Note back to back, like who would think to put the anthem like energy to a song dedicated to paying off crippling debt?! Dee-1 does it, twice!! Now when Dee-1 isn’t making controversial remixes with secular artist or adding Queen inspired anthem antic to hip hop tracks, he’s getting more personal with a few of the tracks like “Miles Davis” and “Fighting Thru Depression.” On both of these tracks, Dee-1 speaks on the issues of the music industry taking its toll on him and his mental stability. Overall this mixtape as a whole did not blow me away and I don’t think it was meant too. When you put out a new project and only half of the songs are new songs, I believe it is more of a hype strategy then anything. It gets people more excited for things to come and Dee-1 being the business man he is, knew this. With the teasing of release dates, a few new songs and the 3 biggest songs he has put out this last year all on one project was more fan service then anything else. The new songs he did release did give me hope for the real album to drop in October and I can’t wait to hear the ideas and themes he is going to pull out for this new strings of projects.
Download Dee-1’s free mixtape here and let us know your thoughts.
