Cyhi The Prynce has a lot of very stylish and very successful Rap friends. These friends include the on-and-off-again G.O.O.D. Music troopers Pusha T, Big Sean, Kid Cudi and Common. Then there’s the swankmaster Kanye West himself, who presumably sees Cyhi as his latest “passion project.” The thinking behind Cyhi’s Ivy League Club mixtape seems to be hooked on the Georgia-born rapper’s relationship to his peers; if he surrounds himself with enough of them, some of their luster and success will rub off on him. But there’s a flaw in this reflected glory theory: While Kanye and Pusha can convincingly rap in a manner to make you think they really do spend all day strutting down the Champs-Elysees like a couple of Margiela-sponsored peacocks, Cyhi seems to suffer from a chronic lack of good taste – and he relays that in a clumsy manner through lyrics littered with cliches. He’s better off sticking to a more lyrics-driven tejectory; something Cyhi is good at (even better than some of his counterparts).
The cliches that afflict Ivy League Club reach a pinnacle with “Tool,” a team-up with Pill and Trouble that sees the trio re-cutting Sade’s “Smooth Operator” to run around the lyrics “I pull my tool on a hater.” It’s as if they’d prefer to be lurking around at a karaoke club than crafting a Rap project. And it doesn’t stop there: Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” becomes Cyhi muttering on about “chilling with my feet up.” It sounds like it should be funny – like a light-hearted parody – but instead it comes off as misguided and a little embarrassing. (Cyhi’s attempts to convince that he’s a mature man-about-town on the song also falter as he drops uninspiring tosh like, “What you know about a manicure and pedicure?/ Shorty, you won’t understand until your brain mature.”) The overall thought when approaching this project is “Cyhi, you’re better than this.”
Most indicative of the problems with the Ivy League Club though is “Entourage,” one of the closing songs on the project. As the title suggests, it basically attempts to point out that Cyhi is capable of sending hilarious drunken texts to some more famous rappers (and, presumably, that sometimes they’ll respond with a polite “LOL”). But instead of lining up alongside the great posse tributes of old, Cyhi sounds like he’s at pains to prove his worth through association. It’s like he’s the guy outside the club hollering that he knows the headliner. He might find that staking a claim as a rapper on his own is more likely to see him ushered inside than his current tactics.
DX Consensus: “Just a Mixtape”
Content: 2/5
Guest Spots: 3.5/5
Lyrics: 3/5
MC: 3/5
Production: 3.5/5
Massively overrated rapper. His only meaningful verse was on Yelawolf’s remix.
The 2005 G.O.O.D. Music > today’s G.O.O.D. (especially not counting Pusha or Q-Tip)
Consequence, GLC and Really Doe would eat this cubscout’s lunch and wrinkle his schoolclothes.
Yeah man old school G.O.O.D. Music had much more soul…
GLC Sucks & his album was awful
this mixtape was dopeee af
Man muthf*ck the haters that mixtape was straigh glass, an all the songs riding. If yall feel as though he could do better why even listen to the mix
Man muthf*ck the haters that mixtape was straigh glass, an all the songs riding. If yall feel as though he could do better why even listen to the mix.
yall niggas must not of been listening to what he was spittin. Dude a fuckin ox he the dopest out the A. He better then some fuckin kanye west.
your reviews are biased as fuck. kanye don’t fuck around when it comes to music, why you hate WINNERS and TRUE lovers of the culture blinds me, and then you go and give officer ricky same rating as nas? do your jobs and actually listen to tracks, cause if you did you’d know that g.o.o.d. music is a group of perfectionists, not lazy hype trump actors.
Yeah Big Sean… come on what were the lyrics in that chorus again?
“Ass ass ass ass ass
Ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass
Ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass”
I’m a fan of Kanye’s shit, but this comment is the perfect example of when it goes from being a fan to a dickrider. Don’t be a stan, co-signing shit just because of who’s releasing it, not because it’s dope. You need to get your head cleared out.
i find dis album very relaxing at da same time u jst wana dance
Narcissistic raps. Find your own identity.
This mixtape was one of the best mixtapes that came out this month honestly. Damn what Hiphopdx says I loved it.
yall didnt not once mention any of the great songs on this mixtape.”Honor Roll” and “Bachelor” just to name a few. you niggas reviews are garbage. its a mixtape with an albulm feel. i mean i could see if yall talked the good and bad but yall didnt so i give this review a 0.5…… yall pathetic
Narcissistic raps. Find your own identity.
This nigga bullshittin, Tool was the best song on the mixtape
shocking review, very strong mixtape from cyhi
Your review was terrible. The only bad thing about this mixtape were the skits. 4 stars
Very seldom you get album quality songs on a mixtape. Thank you CyHi for this free mixtape.
In the most sincere way I can put this, this is the most garbage review I’ve ever read. This mixtape exceeded expectations and then some. How you are taken seriously to write something like this blows my mind. To put it lightly, you’re an idiot
This review made some legit points… Cyhi isn’t a great artist by any means, though he is a legit rapper with good flow on certain tracks. The production makes this mixtape not the lyrics. Every song has their moments good and bad.
shirley mclame.
he has a crazy flow. no other rapper has the ability to string references together the way he does
horrible
THEY SHOULD FOCUS ON CYHI. THEY NAME DROPPED KANYE TOO MUCH IN THE REVIEW AND HES NOT ON THE PROJECT. IVY LEAGUE IS A GOOD MIXTAPE. HE DOIN WHAT HE IS SUPPOSED TO RIGHT NOW. KEEP MAKING MUSIC TO STAY RELEVANT TIL ITS HIS TURN TO BE IN THE FRONT. DUDE IS ONE OF THE BETTER MCS OUT HERE NOW. HES CLEVER AND PUNCHLINE HEAVY. CYHI WANTS TO SING THO. STICK TO HE RAPS HOMIE
Can we get the lyrics right in a review. ‘you won’t understand until your bread mature’. And did you just skim it? Cyhi is dope and if anything underrated.
this nigg@ is hatin in the review.
fire
This nigha hatin with this review… CyHi probably one of the better rappers on the GOOD music label, this mixtape is potent !!
Ill as can be