Any musician to land a connection with the Trap martyr, Young Thug, has unlocked their potential for musical infamy. Young Thug is one of the Trap artists who have opened their doors for students to study the music that reaches youth of nearly every personality.
Strick is a student of Young Thug that has garnered the connections of Wiz Khalifa and Wu Tang’s RZA, as well as nearly 150,000 monthly Spotify listeners. Being a business student as well as an honorable Air Force militant, Strick has the discipline and mental vigor to reach such feats. Someone of his mentality understands the aspects of the game and plays his cards with precision and thoughtful execution.
See You When I Land is his third studio album, struck with twelve tracks of Young Thug-inspired production and motivated rapping. In terms of serving the genre, Strick does his job well.
The first case to acknowledge this is the song, “The Loop.” The song involves this looped guitar sample that slides under the typical Trap drums and bass lines. For a Trap song, his lyrics aren’t that uninspired. I particularly like the line “Taekwondo, roundhouses. Maybach light, give Chris a round saucer.”
When you listen to an introductory song such as “The Loop,” the listener may already get the image of how the rest of the album may sound like. This expectation is strengthened when the next song, “Benji,” comes into play.
Strick switches on and off again when it comes to the clever wordplay. A lot of his lines take the form of fillers, such as “Hold up, I’ll take one, okay, maybe one more, yeah.” Strick would then write something creative, such as the line, “I got the Lamborghini sliding like a cobra. Every time they dim the lights, I’m still glowing up.” The similar Trap pattern of bass lines and peddling drums are apparent here, and unfortunately exemplifies one of the more boring aspects of this album.
It seems as if Strick is following the formula too passively at times. Not much variety is offered in this project. Although, Strick makes up for the stylistic passiveness with the occasional lyrical wit. His flow is seemingly more active than a lot of other rappers falling under this genre.
This is particularly evident in the track “Hibachi,” featuring fellow rapper Duke, in which Strick comes along with the line, “Bentley Mulsanne, misogyny. Bitch like Madonna beside me.” Duke then comes in with a clever wit which goes, “Speak when you say my name, just have respect. I cannot move if you don’t have a check.”
My personal favorite song from this album is the single entitled “Wishing On A Star.” For its two-minute duration, the song billows fervent energy with one of Strick’s most fluid flows along with a decent Trap beat that bounces and rattles the walls of my bedroom. Especially on this track, Strick spews out each word with enough articulation, yet also follows a paced flow that was cultivated by the likes of Lord Infamous from Three 6 Mafia.
This type of flow, although not necessarily copied, is a style that serves as an essential caliber for artists of this genre. The fast, sputtering and hyped-up production calls upon a lyrical flow like Strick’s to stay in accordance with its rhythm. Strick executes that well in “Wishing On A Star,” especially with the line, “And it just dawned on me, I got a godly complex. I feel like all my niggas the bomb, like we the ones to go up next.”
Strick demonstrates a capability that could serve well for the genre, even if it isn’t fully actualized in this album. Through the safe production and, at some points, lazy writing, See You When I Landis a star waiting to fully reach its potential. I would like to see where Strick goes from here, and where he ends up landing at.
