Albums : Tyga : Hotel California (Explicit Deluxe Version)

Albums : Tyga : Hotel California (Explicit Deluxe Version)

Listen To Tyga : Hotel California (Explicit Deluxe Version)

Who Is Tyga?
With a rangy set of friends from Fall Out Boy to Lil Wayne, it was obvious from the start that Tyga was not your everyday rapper from Compton. After recording a mixtape and promoting it around the city, Tyga ran into his cousin, Gym Class Heroes member Travis McCoy, in the Flight Club L.A. sneaker shop. Their conversation went from shoes to rappers, and as Travis' group went from unknowns to MTV stars, he would always remember that talk and his cousin's unique style. Travis signed Tyga to his Bad Squad label and then invited him along when the punk-pop group Fall Out Boy came calling. Travis and Tyga would appear on the remix to Fall Out Boy's "Arms Race," which also featured Kanye West, Paul Wall, Skinhead Rob, Lupe Fiasco, and Lil Wayne. When the remix became a hit, Tyga found himself performing the track on MTV's Video Music Awards in 2007. He soon entered the studio to do some guest shots for his new friend Lil Wayne before shifting the focus to his solo career. His first single became the hooky "Coconut Juice," a S*A*M & Sluggo production that borrowed a bit of Harry Nilsson's hit "Coconut." As the club track was climbing the charts in the spring of 2008, Tyga was hard at work on his debut album, No Introduction, which was officially released that June. He returned in 2012 with Careless World, an album that featured Game, Snoop Dogg, and Drake among its guests.

Hotel California Review
It’s been almost a year and a half since Tyga officially dropped “Rack City” on the world, and went from “that one guy who made the coconut juice song” to an internationally famous artist. In that period of time, he’s released his first major commercial album ‘Careless World: Rise Of The Last King,’ which caused controversy due to uncleared Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech samples, produced and marketed a porno, and had a video surface of him bragging about his upper middle class upbringing on MTV.

While it would be out of line to question his commercial success, or his ability to acquire some infectious production, a vast majority of the attention the young rapper who claims Compton (but has admitted to being raised in the valley) gets is often for the wrong reasons – as in, the one’s that aren’t music related. At this point, it’s probably accurate to say that he’s more well known for his away from the mic shenanigans, Young Money co-sign, and the three heavy synth notes that started his before mentioned hit “Rack City ” and its infamous hook, than anything his.

With his 2nd major commercial project Hotel California, it doesn’t seem like much is going to be changing as far as the perception of his career is concerned. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its moments or boasts some solid, highly enjoyable production at points. But, with the exception of a handful of tracks, the album feels like a generic and painfully obvious attempt to try and recapture the ignorant but undeniable magic of his smash hit – and it’s pretty damn unsuccessful at it.

Lyrically, at least when Tyga’s on the mic, Hotel California might be the most boring hip hop project in the now long-running history of the genre. 80% of his rhymes on the album don’t hit on any topic except how many groupies he’s pulling, the drugs he’s on, the money he’s making, or how much better he is then you. In fact, outside of a few tracks that come off like bubblegum love songs (namely “Enemies”, “Show You”, and “For the Road”), those are literally the only things he talks about.

Granted, the same could be said for a lot of successful – some highly talented – artists in hip hop these days. But considering his lack of creative wordplay, diversity of flows, or overly impressive technical performance, he definitely can’t pull off such a one-dimensional lyrical approach over the span of an entire album. In small doses, he’s been a good a change up next to other artists, but when Tyga’s the centerpiece of the experience, it isn’t always a good look.

When it comes to stuff that bumps, Two chains will make you laugh. Chief Keef, especially when backed by Young Chop’s production, will get your blood pumping. Future’s style makes for hooks that even the biggest skeptics of party music can get addicted to. Juicy J is a legend on the Southern club scene, and for good reason…and that’s just a small selection of the guys that do what Tyga tries to do on this album, much, much better than he does it. There are at least twenty others doing it with big buzz in the same space, several which make an appearance on this project and completely overshadow him.

To be blunt, this album is at its best, overall and from a lyrical standpoint, when those feature artists show up. Wiz drops two verses on “Molly” and “M.O.E.”, and while they’re lazy – even by his current standards – they still run circles around Tyga from a charisma standpoint. Rick Ross does the same on the album’s lead single “Dope”, and Future comes through on “Show You”, which ends up sounding more like one of his tracks than the artist whose album it is. Even the uninspired Wayne verse on “500 Degreez” is far more interesting than a majority of what Tyga brings to his own project.

When all’s said and done, nothing’s quite as boring in hip hop than hearing uninspired surface level rhymes about what another man’s spending or screwing, and Hotel California is proof. Outside of “It Never Rains” and its solid Game verse, and a somewhat introspective concept on “Diss Song” there’s almost nothing worth noting from a writing perspective, and Tyga’s monotonous flow just doesn’t stand up considering the type of music he tries to make. There just isn’t anything here for fans of interesting lyrical experiences, and there’s too many other, far more entertaining, “hype” rappers out there to give this one much attention for what’s happening on the mic.

Fortunately for Tyga and the project overall, some of the production choices are pretty nice. Unfortunately, they’re pretty inconsistent, far from intricate, and aren’t minimal in that primal, make even a dead dude move way that “Rack City” was either. Again, much like his lyrical style, the production here isn’t anything that can’t be found much better elsewhere.

One look at the production credits of his last album and then this one is enough to realize that the beat budget for the Hotel California album was minimal in comparison to what he had for Careless World. There aren’t any names like Pharrell, Boi-1nda, 40, or Cool & Dre like he had last time, and it shows. While the production does boast some interesting samples, like Jay-Z’s “Feeling it” on “M.O.E.” and a nice vocal rip on “It Neva Rains” from the old So-Cal neo-soul group “Tony! Toni! Tone!”, most of the tracks are one-dimensional, lack a professional level of layered sounds, and come across as an inferior product compared to what’s being released by other artists these days.

But even so, there are some definite highlights that at least make for some decent, maybe rotation worthy singles. The “Hijack” beat comes closest to the ratchet in a good way vibe that helped him sell millions of singles a year ago. While the hook on “Molly” might be the moment that hip hop’s molly trend committed suicide, it does a pretty solid job at finding some EDM crossover appeal. “Hit Em Up” is also a pretty tough beat, especially when Jadakiss is on it. But, the high points in the production are few and far between considering the fact that the type of music Tyga makes relies on it heavily.

Overall, it’d be tough to recommend Hotel California to anyone who isn’t already firmly on the Tyga bandwagon, and judging by the hype around this release, it isn’t necessarily a ton of people at this point. It lacks that one monster single that turned what was a relatively unimpressive first project into a huge success, and the Young Money buzz machine seems to be slowing down for everyone except Drake at this point. If you’re heavily into his sound already, this is probably going to leave you (barely) satisfied, and it’s probably worth the pick up then. But if not, there’s absolutely nothing here that you can’t find done better, more interestingly, and more entertainingly elsewhere.


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