Bird City, what’s good! Another week, another banger from the Arizona Hip-Hop music scene. Last week we had a perfect 10, leaving some wide shoes to fill for the young emcee out of Tempe coming at you this week. Our feature song this week is from Paul Louis, a contemporary rapper with a sound like most rappers that currently have a “Lil’” in front of their name. To Paul’s credit, his music has its own identity and with his style in delivery he clearly understands how he wants to be heard. On “Thunder”, Paul delivers a cocky edge, a choppy flow, and some girl talk.
Paul gets comfortable over a heavy trap beat with a booming 808 and chiming bells that help create the “dope boy vibe.” From a creative standpoint, there’s nothing original about Paul’s latest work. It’s repetitive in both content and style with throw away lines like “I just fucked a Camilla Cabello look alike, ey/ if you around me you better look alive/”, just come off ass lazy and poorly thought out. Paul’s rhymes on “Thunder” like a suburban rapper doing trap music, and that’s because, well, he is. Just out of high school hailing from Tempe, AZ, trap style raps aren’t going to be familiar for him. Check out, “Video Games” and “Heartbroke” for a couple joints closer to his core. One thing that Paul does well is his use effects and switching of cadences. Early in the song, Paul showcases both of these skill sets, “everybody wanna fake flex/but that’s not me/ I been headed to the apex/try to stop me/”. Every other bar, Paul uses a PA/Intercom type sound to give additional impact to his rhymes. At :45 seconds and 1:34 respectively, Paul smoothly transitions to a double time flow that re-engages the listener.
The sound quality on the track is decent. While it doesn’t have the clean mix and mastered sound of a professional studio, levels were set accurately, and the use of voice effects were appropriate. I wasn’t in love with the “skkrrrttts” in the background, as they seem a bit contrived, although fitting for a song like this. Lyrically, Paul Louis has some decent lines, nothing completely earth shattering, but bars like the hook, “I be smoking on that loud like the thunder/”, “I like my girls and my necklace Cuban/ imma pull up watching Netflix zooted/”, and the last bars on the track, “nah you can’t do it like me/ you can’t ride my .wav cause you .mp3/”.
Paul louis has a solid foundation and creates a solid, modern sound. “Thunder” is a little out of his lane, but he still turns in a solid performance worth out of a 7 out of 10 this week from the review! As always, thanks for checking out this week’s feature and I’ll be back next week with more. Peace and love, your boy, Bo!
BIRDCITYVIEW 