SHIFTER’s Kevin Bourne says NBA Youngboy’s latest is decent, but creativity, lacks depth and growth. Here’s his Don’t Try This At Home album review.
A day after he narrowed the gap with Nick Cannon, welcoming his 11th child in the world, NBA Youngboy returned with his latest album Don’t Try This At Home. The Baton Rouge native is as prolific in making albums as he is making babies with this being his 10th album since the beginning of 2022.
Similar to previous offerings, the album can be broken down into four categories―piano bangers, angsty melodic tracks, generic bangers, and laid back songs.
The project opens with a trio of bouncy tracks with menacing chords and Youngboy’s equally menacing voice in “Big Truck”, “Mr. Gaulden”, and “Take Down”. This sound makes up the bulk of the sound on the album as he follows the same formula on “Choppa Docter”, “Morning”, “Trust Issues”, “No Rubber”, “Loaded Now”, “Got One”, “Spin&Ben’n”, “1.5”, “Another Dead”, “Head Shot”, and “Grave Digga”. Despite stating recently that he regrets the violence in his music, on the latter track he raps “I go by Youngboy. I make murder music”. Given everything that’s happening in the world and his influence on the next generation, this begs the question, why is “murder music” even a thing? What purpose does it serve?
One thing he has always done well is both rap and sing at an equally high level, and that continues to be displayed on this album. On melodic, angsty songs like “Out Nothing”, “Rear View”, “Hustle” and “Off The Lean” he raps with desperation and urgency as if his life depended on it. These are balanced with generic bangers like “Also By Myself”, “Homicide Pt. 2”, and “Cold Killers” with his signature bounce, and more laid back songs like “No Lease”, “Pistol Totting”, “I Is That”, and “Like Madden”.
While there are standout tracks among all the piano bangers, the laid back guitar track “War” and “Don’t Leave” are also among the standout songs.
If there is a downside to the album it’s that, although the Mariah The Scientist feature is refreshing given the sound of the rest of the album, generally speaking, the features fall a bit flat, especially “What You Say” which is underwhelming given Post Malone and The Kid LAROI‘s star power. Youngboy is a drink that needs no chaser, meaning while some artists need features in order to keep fans’ attention, Youngboy is better on his own with no supporting cast.
Overall, Don’t Try This At Home is a good album, but falls short of the standard set by his previous offerings. While Youngboy has found a way to fill a 33-song album with a similar sound without having it come across as overtly boring, it still sounds quite repetitive which takes away from the project and portrays a lack of creativity and risk taking. This is a prime example that less could’ve been more. He also hasn’t shown much personal and musical growth. It would good to see him follow the lead of artists like Offset and NAV in exploring other sounds and subject matter in his music that reveals more about who he is on a deeper level. While he’s done a bit of that on occasion in the past, this album lacks that depth.
But we’ll let the fans decide. Check out the album for yourself and let us know what you think.
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