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Paraphraze: Sincerely Yours



The album starts with a low tempo instrumental. The beat patterns are extremely simplistic and lay far into the background. The music quality is crisp and the melody is emotionally strong. The snares and beats are enhanced with reverb that allows the melody and vibe to explode. Paraphraze vocals are vivid and mastered well on this record. His vocal tone is somber and perfect. Paraphraze lyrics embrace as he speaks about his struggles as a student, artist, and man. His lyrics are entertaining and flow pattern stays interesting throughout the record. His delivery is a faint mix of “stop and go” and traditional. The chorus is strong lyrically but lacks a melody. The heavy dubs allow you to enjoy the vocal change but that only grants a small boost to the record. The next song on the album “Tennessee Chainsaw Massacre” starts off with a controversial “Lil Yatchy” interview. To paraphrase it, Lil Yatchy spoke about how he doesn’t care about the bars and the origin of hip-hop. Paraphraze, immediately, after the skit takes a stand on mumble rap. Paraphraze goes on a lyrical tear and directly attacks. His lyrics and metaphors are direct, this is a diss record. Paraphraze's flow pattern is boom-pap, chunky and patterned around the NYC 90’s hip-hop. His feature “Mr.Krt” is a great addition to the record. He delivers a similar yet less structured flow pattern. Both artists had witty punchlines and thought-provoking lyrics to back up their claims. The record successfully manages to bring both Paraphraze's point to light and send a praise to the roots of hip-hop. The instrumental on the record was pulled straight from the 90’s. A bare-bone beat pattern that gave little to the listener. This beat would have shined in the 90’s if the artist approaching it had performed extremely aggressive. Paraphraze could have added some modernism into the record to cater to more listeners but decided to not go that route. The next record “Slow Ya Roll” production has an immediate familiarity. A 90’s based instrumentation provided with clean ticks and a average melody to front. The back instruments that fall behind the beats play an amazing part in painting the imagery. It garnishes this record and gives it such a beautiful feel. Paraphraze vocals are strong, and his rap structure gives you an immediate bounce. His flow pattern is similar to the records above but never dulls out through the record. His lyrics are vivid and vocal infliction is soothing to hear. His storytelling in this record isn’t as strong as you would have hoped as it follows similar but still relevant topics. Paraphraze really shines with his chorus on this record. The chorus comes in as the beat takes its height. Paraphraze vocals are thick but have little effects to support. The chorus is infectious and gives you a bounce throughout. This song paints the perfect picture and gives you that golden era hip-hop feels all over. A small bump in the road with a predictable story but manages to keep you interested throughout. Roll down to the next record “Daytons, Dubs, & 84” the instrumental is light with little drum patterns. A small melody sits in the background of the record as it creates little impact. His first verse is very vivid as his storytelling takes charge. His vocal pattern is mid-range tempo and never really delivers anything special. As the song progress, he switches his lyrics from one era of hip-hop to another which is impressive. The record never manages to grab this concept well. As the song progress, your interest also perish. The chorus failed to really grab a southern sound as he completely depended on his lyrics instead of melody or instrumentation. You would have expected some type of instrumental change or flow pattern to match, but nothing. This song failed to meet expectations as it continued to play on. Drop down to the next song “Swisha Sweet Dreams” the production on this record falls into the similar feel. The ticks and beat pattern very melodic with little to no change. The beat pattern feels average but, the production as a whole is complete. The beat is supported with a dusty mist, that gives it a smoker’s vibe. Everything falls in a place as Paraphraze lyrics are metaphorically about smoking. Paraphaze didn’t really add anything new to this overused concept. Paraphraze storytelling and lyrics are strong but similar to other concepts in hip-hop. The chorus never really manages to touch us in any special way. Just seemed to pass on by as nothing in the record manages to grab our attention. The song is not bad, but nothing stands out to make this exceptional. Skip down to the next record “She loves me not” the production on this record takes a somewhat different approach. The beat pattern follows the same tempo, but is accompanied with a faint sample. This helps to refresh the extremely similar production pattern. Paraphraze vocal infliction on this record is strong, you can hear his pain. His lyrics follow suit, the lyrics are strong and raw. His lyrics never drag behind and keep you entertain throughout. His flow pattern is tradition to what you may have come to know of Paraphraze. His metaphors are unique and sprinkled throughout the record. The chorus is mundane and never really elevates the song past the peak of the verse. The chorus follows the same bar like format with heavy dubs and slight re-verb. The next song “Not my problem” shows a different side of hip-hop. Paraphaze pens a record about how much people don’t really pay attention to others. His vocals are crisp and vivid as usual. You can hear every word and pronunciation from the artist. This song has such a high level of storytelling it's mesmerizing. I began to daydream on the first verse and started to picture his lyrics. Because the production is so melodic and his vocals are silky smooth, this allows you to pay close attention to the lyrics. Paraphraze delivered on the topic perfectly and created a unique realm to speak about. The chorus similar to his others fit perfectly in this format. Not my problem showed that Paraphraze has no problems with storytelling and delivering his imagination on a gold platter. “Leave me Be” plays into the social aspect of Paraphraze. The lyrics are strong and give off an amazing vibe. The chorus is bare but works into the aspect of the record. The production is very simplistic but has charm. Although the song lyrical impact is strong the record itself never manages to capture us particularly. The next song on the album “Dayz Like This” has finally completely changed the production format. This is the first instrumental on the album that felt completely different from the previous. The beat pattern is refreshing and bouncy. The melody sits in the middle of the record. A synthy gothic sounding violin traps you into into the song. Paraphraze vocals are clean and sit into the perfect pocket of the beat. Paraphraze switches his style to support the instrumental, he kicks around the tempo and dirties up his flow pattern. This is such a refreshing change, and shows you a new side of Paraphraze. His feature “Nubia Emmon” comes in strong as she delivers the chorus. Her vocals mixing wise seemed slightly high, but it could have been a design choice. Her voice is unique and impressive, she harmonizes and gives a strong performance. The chorus has a bounce and repetitive melody structure that plays out well. His second feature “Rob Nollan” shines the strongest on the record. His flow pattern in highly entertaining and vocals are very unique. He manages to elevate an already great song. His lyrics are fun and witty, and keeps our attention throughout the full performance. An amazing choice of artist to accompany a great record. Drop down to last record “Resignation Letter” the beat immediately re-introduces you to the 90’s feel. The production had small melody support but lack overall.  The flow pattern goes back to his original format and allows you to just directly focus on the lyrics. Even, though Paraphraze flow pattern is standard he never really loses his charm throughout the record. His topic is the job force in America and his personal struggles. Although, the topic was unique it didn’t make a strong enough impact to be the last record on the album. The previous song to this record {Wake Em’ Up} was significantly stronger and gave us a better closer than this one.  The chorus was aggressive and very raw. His chorus followed the same flow pattern format and gave little to remember. To be his resignation we would have hoped Paraphraze would have made a bigger scene. This album was chalked with lyrics and thought-provoking content. Paraphraze is an amazing writer that has an applaud-worthy performance on almost every record. The storytelling was vivid and gave us a sense of 90’s hip-hop. Paraphraze never lost us in the midst of reminiscing as he managed to keep us entertained. Paraphraze undeniably relied on this format throughout the majority of the album. The beginning of the album was strongest as the production choice started to drain the appeal as we went on. So much of the production sounded similar that it hurt the album more than anything. Familiar beat patterns, low melodies and catering to his tradition rap format, Paraphraze took a very small risk on this album. But, when Paraphraze did change up his routine flow and production pattern it was amazing. His Features were amazingly chosen and revitalized the project. His approach to giving us his personality was great but we needed a little more persona to match. The album was entitled sincerely yours but it seem this album was more for himself than his audience. This album isn’t one we will return to sender, we just hope the next one is written with us in mind.  



Paraprhaze -Sincerely Yours

3.5/5

Great

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