First Listener Review of Lifestyles of the Young & Ignorant
So I put it out there on Twitter that I would take some listener reviews/feedback and put them up on the site. The first review came in from Darius Massad of Austin, TX who also has his own site: www.LaborOfLoveMusic.com. He was really thorough with it, deciding to go track by track and break down his reactions and highlights of each record
I’m still looking for more reviews and feedback to post up, so send yours into TheESSOexperience@gmail.com and I’ll throw some more up here as I get them
Peep Darius’ reactions/review of the EP:
Normally I would not do a write up on an EP. A FREE EP at that. But every once in a while you have to make exceptions to the rules and that is clearly the case here. This EP is so compelling that it bears mentioning.
The EP is only six tracks long but each track delivers something unique to the listening experience and the only way to address the music is to do it track by track.
Change Your Life is a track that talks about accepting your ways or changing them. He drops a short autobiography telling the listener about his background. Everyone has a different moral code. What’s right for one person may be condemned as immoral by the next man. It’s a track that speaks on the subject of ‘perspective’. We all have different hustles going on and Esso uses this track to let us walk a mile in someone elses shoes before we go around judging them. Appreciate what you have while you have it is the moral of the story. The beat is brought to you by Frequency and sprinkles a little bit of everything from the musical pallet. A little piano, a little synth, and some hand claps will get the head nodding in no time
HIT THE JUMP TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW
On Get It How You Live, producer Rena1ssance is behind the boards on this one and shows and proves his skill with the beat he crafted for this gem. The sound is filled with horns and symbols while Esso flips his conversational style as though he was giving some advice to a little brother. Dropping wisdom on how to be successful in the world of adults.
“..It aint peaches, it’s grapefruit, you just appreciate the bitter sweet shit…“
“Is it a failure to fail or failure not to act.“
Just line by line of words we can all relate to.
With Young and Ignorant, the beat by Whurld Ent. knocks. It works a heavy laid synth track with a kicking bass drum driving Esso’s clever verses where he states: “I hold myself high like a baby at a christening…“. Esso not a punchline emcee by any stretch of the imagination continues to drop a metaphor every now and again that just makes you smile. It’s just another solid track driving home the point that this guy is talented.
Track number four leads us to Living Doll. This is probably the most uptempo track on the EP. It’s subject matter relates to a woman who lives in the “surreal” life. It’s a glamour thing. It’s a posterity thing. It’s all about who you know and who you are with. I feel like it’s a social commentary not only on a particular type of lady but of a society that propagates and supports these ideas.
Doing It Again is a super smooth track laced with some piano and sparse beats again provided by Rena1ssance. If added soul needed to be added to the recipe, on comes John Legend to provide the hook. Esso narrates the story of love and then love lost, and perhaps unrequited love at the end. His emotional and personal approach to the song make it felt by the listener, dropping resonating words and phrases like…”to know sweet, you got to know bitter“. Relationships are a combination of the good and the bad and we either learn to accept or we learn to live with regret. This is a very powerful cut.
Nicotine is my personal favorite of the bunch. I can really relate to Nicotine as a listener. It again appears to be a personal narration of what’s going on his life. The best way to describe the cut is by letting Esso’s lyrics speak for themselves.
“I want my life to feel good like the last cigarette in the pack. Inhale…Exhale, watch the smoke react. Niggers hate the way I live, they the least of my worries. Throw a party when I die and my corpse is buried. I got some heavy shit on my head. Parents rather me in office, but I vision me a supernova…launch me in orbit. Ain’t meant for this world. I live among the stars, but niggas caught up in the money and fuckin’ cars…“
The female vocals are by Lydia Caesar and usually I don’t mention vocals like this but her voice really moves you when it gets to the chorus. The Stereotypes provide a soothing yet aggressive (if that’s possible) track for Esso’s verses. The music is very meditative but the I can easily see this being a video and can see that video being played out in my mind. This cut is classic to me because it hits home. People want ‘real’ talk? Well this right here is real talk.
Esso has done this the right way. A very short but poignant introduction to the hip hop community. Every verse sounds like an observation he is making directly to you or a reflection of something from his life. Beautiful music is made when the artist is honest with his product and I never got the sense that Esso was any less than that. That type of honesty puts the listener at attention. You wanted to listen to each verse and savor the hook. The lyrics weren’t flying over your head, they were staring right back at you. At the end of the EP, you will want to mark Esso as one of the artists to look out for in the not so distant future and mark this short but dope EP for heavy rotation NOW.
