Inconsistency is dangerous. If your material gets repetitive or dips in quality, even in the relatively small timeframe of an LP, people will move on to the next thing. This is one of Staten Island producer Git Beats‘ problems on his new record, Say Cheeze! The work fails to string together a series of songs that hold the listener’s interest. Although Git Beats has secured a respectable back-catalog with Raekwon, T-Weaponz, and his onetime Pay Day Records troupe The Street Preachers, this showing may feature the programming and mixing of an accomplished producer, the sum of the parts fails to impress.
Git Beats, as his name implies, is consumed by drums. Every song has a prominent drum loop throughout. They sound great, crisp and hard, but they can get monotonous quickly. Songs are saved when they are kept brief. There are four instrumental interludes on the record, all under two minutes, and their brevity is their greatest asset. The drum loops pull you in but don’t hang around long enough to wear out their welcome.
Also on several songs Git looks beyond the beat to flesh out the track with interesting production flourishes. “Paint Your Self” uses a disorienting vocal sample as its hook and succeeds in keeping the listening interested, credit for that also belongs to energetic verses by Prince Po [click to read] and Rock [click to read]. That track is followed by the genuinely exciting “Just One of Those Days,” a two-year-old 12-inch-single which uses a minimal beat and great guest spots from Raekwon [click to read] and Ice Water to create a song that is enjoyable as a result of its unassuming atmosphere. But just when it looks like Beats is about to get a win streak going it gets derailed by the Ark-assisted done to death “love-song-to-a-girl-oh-but-really-it’s-about-Hip Hop” track, “My Love.” Though even that track fares far better than “How I Do,” an embarrassing love song (to a girl) with weak lyrics from Ark and boy band-esque production. And to close out the love song troika on Say Cheese! there is “Under Age,” a song about having to break off an almost love affair with a 16 year old, the less said about that track the better.
And it is this inconsistency – the good tracks broken up by the terrible that makes this album hardly worth your time. For every interesting songs, like “America” which contains a chopped up vocal sample and decent lyrics from LadyBug Mecca, there is “Fight” a song with a chorus so monotonous it’s a chore to get through once. The record doesn’t flow together well, to say the least. Git Beats has a real talent for short bursts of creative percussion and interesting samples I’d be much more attracted to a whole album of his interludes. It’s this records need to stretch ideas past their breaking point that ultimately leaves the listener frustrated and exhausted and unwilling to investigate further.
