SOB X RBE

★ 6.5

album

GANGIN II

“It's my fault for wanting to go back to this album after not even being an afterthought. In my own delusional way, I've always thought that this was good, or at least decent. But damn, I didn't expect this to be more average than I thought. "GANGIN II" is SOB X RBE's first album since their placement on the Black Panther soundtrack with their song "Paramedic!". (Still a banging song, by the way.) You would think they would've evolved even slightly with a project so soon after blowing up in the mainstream, right? Well... musically, they regressed. I'm not even surprised that the group members did literally nothing to improve their flows, raps, and even punchlines whatsoever, which might be asking for a bit too much. My attention then shifted to the beats, which has been the group's key to tolerable tracks. I'll give them props for trying to switch up their sound musically a bit with this one (though I liked the consistency of the first "GANGIN" project), but as a whole, what happens is there's a few more misses than hits to where on said misses, SOB X RBE feels a bit out of place on their own song because of their beat selection. "Peek A Boo", "Water Fountain", and "Times Get Hard", two of those having feature verses by two artists I don't really care for, happen to be the worst material SOB X RBE has released at that point, and ends up nearly killing the vibe for me. Aside from "Made It" and "Leave the Streets Alone" (the latter being my favorite on this), SOB X RBE tried to think outside the box while simultaneously attempting to still stay in their lane that got them to where they were by this point. The end result of "GANGIN II" is a mixed bag, unfortunately.”

two cents reviews

@my.two.cents.reviews

★ 6.4

album

Tutuland

“To this day, I can't tell you how I ignored this when going though their (then-smaller) discography back in 2018. Simultaneously, I'm kind of glad I didn't see this until recently. SOB X RBE linked up with fellow Californian group Big Money and created a mixtape for one of Big Money's fallen people, Tutu. Hence, the EP is named after him. First off, R.I.P. to Tutu. That just had to be said out of respect. That being said, though... this was just painfully average. Even I can admit that listening to SOB X RBE repeatedly with the same flows does get a bit exhausting. Add that with rappers in another crew and you have one cluster of a project with very little wiggle room in each track that simply exists. The high moments that somehow occur are few and far in between, so the production has to pick up some of the slack. On a normal SOB X RBE project, the beats do just that; on this one, this fails quite remarkably. Shoot, the strongest moments of the project are the opening two tracks; the rest as average at best. As a whole, though, this EP is pretty damn forgettable. Shit... now I wish I would've kept ignoring this.”

two cents reviews

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★ 8.2

album

GANGIN

“Oh, yes. I remember when I first came across SOB X RBE's debut album, "GANGIN". It was after hearing their song "Paramedic!" that made me want to check out some of their work. The first project I saw was "GANGIN", as it was their most recent effort at the time. Back then, though I kinda had it on as background noise, I enjoyed it enough to download it to my computer. It's unfortunate I haven't went back to it much since then. Because damn, I forgot how hype this album actually is. SOB X RBE really come into their own on here, as their punchlines are a bit more clever this time around. Soon as "Carpoolin'" comes on, it's pretty much guaranteed that this is a prime party record from front to back. The first half is full of bangers, some of my favorites include "Anti Social", "Lifestyle", "No Discussion", and "Can't", the latter being my most favorite song on the project. Then everything kind of begins to lose steam by the halfway point. Like, it's not terrible, and the material on this side is still good or great ("Once Upon a Time" is lowkey GOATed), but some of these songs end up falling into the "background music" category. It's not something that makes me dislike "GANGIN" in any way, though. By the time I finished this project, I was taken back to early 2019 when I first heard this. I see immature hoodrat me getting hype and doing reckless things with this playing in the background. Years later and while I'm much more calmer nowadays, the odds of me doing a little two-step to the majority of songs on here are pretty high.”

two cents reviews

@my.two.cents.reviews

★ 7.6

album

SOB X RBE

“I've been a casual listener of SOB X RBE, with my introduction to them was via the Black Panther soundtrack, of course. However, I never sat down and gave their discography a complete listen, as I've only heard three projects from them. That said, I've heard plenty of fans of the group showing "Anti" and "Calvin Cambridge" to an extent, love to both being on their debut mixtape. Their self-titled effort starts off strong with the first four tracks. Aside from the aforementioned songs, "Lane Changing" is a good introduction to how the group, consisting of Slimmy B, Lul G, Yhung T.O., and DaBoii, operates. Though each members' flow and wordplay do become monotonous after a while, they still manage to come up with tracks that for sure know how to turn a party up, especially in their hometown of Vallejo, California. That said, after "Game Over", the rest of the project is filled with decent material, the majority of which doesn't hold a candle to the opening tracks. The punchlines can only work for so long, especially if you're actually listening to this instead of having it on in the background. What gives this project a lot of its saving grace is the material they sampled from that I instantly recognized. As a project that I can spin front to back and get hype to, I can see why someone else would love it. While I just like it, I can't lie, I found myself showing my ghetto side a lot more with this.”

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