Freddie Bruno, claimin both D.C. and Dallas, is best described as just another face in the underground.
His rhymes are solid, his beats are solid, and therefore his songs are solid too. But they’re songs you think you’ve heard before. Or at least something like them.
The beats, while good, are nothing new. There’s your basic guitar chords layed over a drum beat, and your equally basic horns, pianos, and whatever other samples he and co-producer Harry Krum could find to add colour to a drum beat.
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While there is nothing groundbreaking, these are good songs. “Freddie B-R-Uno,” “Occupational Therapy,” and “Rock the Beat Within Ya Heart,” are great head-nodders, but they’re standard fare. If you took every Pete Rock, Tribe Called Quest, Mobb Deep, and Roots album you owned and tossed them in a blender, this is the album that would come out.
As for Freddie’s style, it’s the same as the beats. He rhymes competently, but he doesn’t stand out of the crowd. His voice sounds a lot like Pep Love of the Hieroglyphics crew, and his style is in some ways similar to Pep’s. He raps about things, not just spitting battle rhyme after battle rhyme, which is getting rarer and rarer. Some of his topics include nerdy Internet hip-hop heads, and how being a rapper makes him poor.
All in all, this is a decent album, but the fact that it doesn’t break any new ground is a testament to the quality of hip-hop being made these days.
