Lucasraps’ “031 To The World” review
It’s been a couple of months now since the release of ‘031 To The World’ by Lucasraps, and I guess the best way to sum up the whole album for me is mediocre.
‘031 To The World’ was really mediocre, that’s just how I felt after listening to it a couple of times. I believe that the first mistake that Lucasraps made was calling this project an album, because the word ‘album’ brings a certain level of expectation, especially when it is your debut.
031 To The World Track listing:
| No. | Song Title |
|---|---|
| 1. | Lucas Raps |
| 2. | Project Mode Freestyle |
| 3. | South |
| 4. | Mud |
| 5. | Without Me |
| 6. | Slide |
| 7. | Ammo |
| 8. | Ouu U Nasty |
| 9. | Jonny Dang |
| 10. | Lucas |
| 11. | Preach |
Your debut album is meant to be your introduction to the game, basically, your first offering which is meant to let your audience know who you are and what you’re about, and I feel as if we didn’t get that from Lucasraps.
Now don’t get me wrong, Lucasraps is a really talented rapper and raps better than most South African rappers, but one’s ability can only get them so far, and I feel as if that’s the reason why most battle rappers aren’t able to make that transition into becoming successful artists.
We don’t want to know you as a guy who can only rap every single time because eventually it just starts to sound repetitive and I guess boring.
I was expecting a switch-up in Lucasraps’ approach to how he creates songs, but the majority of them sounded the same.
Well, ‘031 To The World’ has a few standout songs such as ‘Lucas Raps’, ‘Without Me’ and ‘Slide’.
Watch Lucasraps’ live performance of ‘Without Me’ below;
In all honesty, this should have been an extended play record (EP), or at least a mixtape because the expectations were really high.
I felt like I was let down and maybe that’s my fault, maybe I shouldn’t have had such high expectations for Lucasraps.
But we saw so many other artists release such dope albums last year, and I could help to think that Lucasraps would deliver as well.
There is Blxckie who dropped his debut album ‘B4now’ on Friday 21 May 2021, and I’m sure you all know how good of an album it was, and that’s an understatement, the album had no skips from start to finish and I feel as if Blxckie knew that he had to come out swinging and leave a long-lasting impression.
We also had 25k who released his debut album ‘Pheli Makaveli’ on Friday 23 July 2021, this was a really dope album as well.
What I really enjoyed about 25K is that he managed to show diversity in each of his songs, from his sound, his vocal capabilities as well as how it sounded sonically.
I think you now get my point, both Blxckie and 25K gave us a perfect introduction to who they are through their music, I mean they both had dope debut albums and I thought Lucasraps was going to follow suit and drop a fire album, but he completely missed.
When I think about this being his first album with Def Jam Recordings Africa, it disappoints me even more because it is like he had a whole label behind him, people to executive produce or even guide him, but it’s like no one cared about him.
I don’t understand, what was the point of signing then? It’s like Lucasraps has only yes men around him and if that is the case, he needs to get rid of them as soon as possible because I honestly don’t believe they were rocking with “031 To The World” from start to finish.
And if they were, I guarantee they weren’t being all the way honest with him, that is just my view.
From the outside looking in I feel as if Lucasraps could do with some artist development, he already has a good solid base in the fact that he’s really talented in terms of his raps, but let’s channel that talent and produce something dope out of it.
In all honesty, I would like to see Lucasraps work with Zoocci Coke Dope, where he’s given guidance and a sense of direction in the sound he wants to create.
We’ve seen Zoocci Coke Dope help so many other artists with their sound, from Die Mondez, Flvme, 25K, Priddy Ugly, A-Reece, and many more.
Zoocci being able to mix, master, produce, sing, and rap, without a doubt can take Lucasraps to greater heights. He has already proved it with 25K and what they did on ‘Pheli Makaveli’, so it can be done.
If Lucasraps can get out of his comfort zone and jump on beats that aren’t conventional to his sound, it would be a game-changer.
We saw what he did on ‘What It Is’ by Dr. Peppa, he absolutely did justice to that song because he was doing something different from what he’s used to, instead of his usual 808 up-tempo trap-sounding beats, he jumped on a kwaito-inspired beat and flowed so easy, he actually stood out the most on that song.
Watch ‘What It Is’ by Dr. Peppa featuring Lucasraps, Riky Rick, and Chang Cello below;
In mid-August last year, we had his feature on ‘Pardon My French’ by DJ Speedsta, which also had Zoocci Coke Dope on it.
Having Lucasraps on DJ Speedsta’s song was unexpected but a nice change for once because it was more of a dark slow vibe where he got introspective and deep about himself and I really enjoyed that from him.
I appreciate the song even more now because of the direction he took, but I really hope the album would have had some tracks like this but I guess not.
But you guys get my point though, so yeah, a mediocre album in ‘031 To The World’ from a really dope rapper, but that’s just my two cents though.
My opinion doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, I’m just giving my take on the album but hopefully, his next offering is way better than this one, but I guess time will tell.
Alright, let me know in the comment section below how you felt about the album, was it good, mediocre, or just trash overall?
