Review Summary: Feel good like this
Rome Fortune’s enlistment of CitoOnTheBeat for the entirety of
Beautiful Pimp II’s production was probably a really good idea on paper. How can you improve on that? Throw in guest vox from your son and vibraphone samples from your grandpappy. That shit’s the brew for success in the lean drenched, trap underworld of Atlanta’s rap scene.
But we’re in the real world, where charm doesn’t necessarily equate to substance.
I thought last year’s
Beautiul Pimp showed the emergence of a potential game changer for southern rap. If nothing is it showed Rome was flexible- bangers like “Get The Guap” lay intertwined with softer, more introspective raps such as “Ice Cream Man” or “Lights I’ve Seen.” Not too lyrical, but capable of spinning a decent yarn, Rome was wholly digestible on that project. On
Beautiful Pimp II, however, he definitely seems a lot more aimless, and while the overall results aren’t bad, it’s unfortunate that the hotly-anticipated sequel does nothing to improve or build upon the
Beautiful Pimp. Rome is at his best this time around on the second half of the tape. Choice cuts like “Secretly” or “Tropical,” with Cito providing the excellent grooves for Rome to spit over, are sure to get the joint jumping. Rome’s refrain of “turn it up” on the former is one of 2014’s first “hell yeah” moments in rap, and the latter is fiercely competitive crossover into pop rap- a song with “heavy rotation” written all over it.
If I have any issue with
Beautiful Pimp II it’s that the tape feels almost wholly directionless during its first half. The songs, both lyrically and from a production standpoint, seem to languish under their own docility. Still there’s more than enough here to indicate that Rome is going to have a good year, probably gaining a decent following of converts from the more trap-centric Atlanta emcees. He’s certainly more than a blip on the radar now.
