Throughout the eight albums he’s released since his 2010 debut Marcberg, Roc Marciano has never wavered from spray painting his haunting observations of color-coded violence on dark tapestries.
Roc keeps a flashing neon sign outside his open door and daring listeners to enter his polar vortex on his latest project Marcielago.
Its title is an apropos combination of his name and Lamborghini Murcielago cars that were released during his days of paying dues between 2001 to 2010.
The LP lasts 50 minutes with 15 tracks of dusty soul and jazz loops mostly produced by himself, Animoss and one track by his frequent collaborator The Alchemist.
Known for his relaxed spoken-word delivery, this may be one of Roc’s most energetic yet and puts him foot down as one of Hip Hop’s most influential underground rap hitmen in the digital age.
It begins the introduction “Select Few,” a snippet of an interview of Roc’s fellow Nassau County rap legend Prodigy of Mobb Deep sharing his disgust for unqualified rappers and upholding Hip Hop basic tenets of competition and striving for quality lyricism. It’s the only moral ground that Roc stands on with caution. (“I got morals but this game is a disloyal bitch,” he quips on the album’s first official song “Molly Ringwald.”)
The album shifts into the drive on the track “Choosin Fees” in which Roc uses his wiseguy code language to spit salacious pimpology bars over the bass-thumping 70s R&B sample.
Roc’s rhyme bar structures are filled with compounded rhyme multiples and vividly morbid tales of crime sprees and acquisitive adventures to hell beneath New York City’s post-gentrification surface.
One example is his venomous allusions to sports injuries and nativity over sauntering drums and spatial guitar strums on “Richard Gear.”
“My aura glisten/I shot the ball with the stick from long distance and went off the grid like I’m ballin’ with a torn meniscus/I still never trip with all this water drippin’/I knocked the game up, it was more then just morning sickness,” he spits.
His collaborative tracks on the album are “Ephesians” featuring Ka, “Tom Chambers” with Knowledge The Pirate, the raucous “Puff Daddy” and “God Loves You” assisted by the loud cat-calls from Cook$, the album’s peak “Boosie Fade” featuring Westside Gunn and “Bomb Shelter” with Willie The Kid, which are all worthy gems for East Coast gangsta rap enthusiasts.
But the album’s mediocre points are the Alchemist-produced “Saw” with the overplayed throw-in chorus “We ain’t going nowhere” and “Sayvali” making Roc sound too offbeat with the instrumental’s overly experimental texture.
Marcielago also serves as a reflection of his 20-year career and its summation comes on the closing two tracks “Joe Jackson” and “Legacy.” He discusses how he wasn’t embraced at first but stay the course with personal sacrifice and didn’t use features on other legends like his initial stints with legends such as Busta Rhymes and Pete Rock as his calling card.
Hearing the blood-splattered diary readings of Roc Marciano is like encountering an elderly mobster who elicits sobering feelings of fear, respect and wonder of fashioning evil and elegance can be effortlessly balanced.
“This is a young man’s game ’til I bust your ass,” he barks on “Sayvali.”
Marcielago is Roc reminding people of all ages to heed his word and blades of steel.
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Not his best project but I agree 4
Dude raps like Raekwon too much
He’s nothing like Raekwon
So now that Jay-Z bigs it up, y’all finally gonna review it huh? This why y’all site is dying. Get rid of page kennedy, stop dickriding Eminem, and get some real staff that understands the culture rather than a bunch of know nothing dickriders. Same reason Whyte the source and xxl are no longer viable forms of hip hop media.
Never saw or said Jay-Z‘S co-sign about this album so can’t agree with you. Also, how are you this angry on New Years Day when people are home relaxing after a fun night out to celebrate? Lol. Sorry to see you starting off the new year/decade so bitter. Cheers to brighter days ahead for you.
Jay put “saw” on his year end playlist..that is what he was referring to.
You Jay-Z Stans are hilarious and easily bothered. Typical.
I don’t even care for much of Jay’s shit other than his year end list. I listen to Griselda, Roc Marci, Flee Lord, Rj Payne, Dark Lo, Ty Farris, Crimeapple, and Meyhem Lauren. Far from a Jay Z stan..I only get down to the grimy shit.
Saw was one of the best tracks. That’s why Jay Z put it in his best of the year playlists dumb dumb
Yea it was good but not great. Gotta hold elite artists to a higher standard?♂️
Ship Dope Top 5 Album of 2019
Saylavi is an acquired taste forsure, but Saw is definitely one of the best songs on the album even without a Jay-Z co-sign. Roc and ALC can do no wrong. Not my favorite album from Roc but a solid offering nonetheless. 4 stars
Whoever wrote this, I don’t mean to pick on you but are you dumb? 2020s starts with the year of 2021. If you can count numbers, count 1 to 10 and that’s the decade.
Nice pump-fake but that doesn’t make me leave my feet. That’s why every major media outlet has their “Best of the decade” reviews over the past month and will continue, too. Reading is fundamental, Chloe Fuckdoll.
5/5…
cinematic…
Str8 Fire Roc is the fucking man period on some real grown man shit here I love this lp
This site is turning into a popularity site. They rate albums that’s NOT that good a 4 or higher and then have the nerve to rate Roc’s album the same. FOH man. Whoever writes these articles and rates albums need to take some cizzzock out they mizzzzouth. Are labels paying ya’ll to say some wack shit is hot?
this album was excellent from start to finish.
Roc is too consistent ! Top 3 release of 2019
I agree with the score, and have enjoyed the album for the past week or two. But please Dana Scott, give your words a careful read-over and polish up that prose. The writing has more errors and broken syntax than my little daughter’s texts!
The whole review is just terribly written. No offense to the guy but it just reads as really amateur and like nobody proofread it.
Definitely I agree completely, it’s dog shit writing by Dana. DEBBIE’S FUMING!!!
Maybe English isn’t the writer’s first language or something? Or if the reviews need to pass through editorial, perhaps the editors are all away on Christmas break? There are some good ideas and some nice touches of figurative flair in it, but they are bogged down by the broken language. Marci is such a wordsmith, the review of his work should do him justice – at least when it comes to the word-game and attention to craft.
Does anyone proofread these reviews? So many minor mistakes and missing words I thought I was having a stroke.
This was a top 3 album last year in hip hop, but it’s a 4. Ok…
Roc is the best rapper in the game at the moment . Album was dope like all his previous ones. Uh and the song Sayvali is dope and trippy as fuck. 4.5/5
Sick!!
4,5
Dope lyricist
THIS IS MARCI’S THIRD BEST ALBUM AND THE ALBUM I WANTED FROM HIM AS A FAN.
Met him in Denver he’s a chill az dude
crazy wordplay his pimp street tales are fuckin amazing his laid back flow is prolly why he kinda underrated not as big a artist as he should be same thing happened wit AZ , Lloyd banks n few others but any fan of bars cant go wrong with a trip thru pimpstead for the day with just RocMarci on repeat catch so many gems on his albums got multiple classics and i haven’t heard even an average project