Teezo Touchdown is one of the most exciting names in the music industry at the moment.
His impressive features over the last couple years make him someone you can’t stop listening to and his bizarre yet eye-grabbing persona make him someone you can’t look away from.
Cosigns from Tyler, The Creator, Travis Scott and Drake combined with a unique voice and firm hold on almost any genre he tried — whether it be Hip-Hop, Pop, Rock or R&B — suggested that his debut album wouldn’t only be good but maybe even great. What we got instead is a barely competent mishmash of songs. The good songs are unfortunately outnumbered by tracks that range from just okay to ear-grating.
One of the most frustrating things about this album is that a lot of songs seem to be split in two halves of varying quality. The second half of “You Thought (feat. Janelle Monáe)” is very pretty. The soft instrumental and Teezo’s smooth singing voice combined with Janelle Monáe’s beautiful vocals make the second half of the song one of the better moments on the album. However,the first half ruins it all. Teezo utilizes an off putting staccato flow where he spits poorly written bars such as, “You would’ve thought that I hated the stage, the way that I do not play,” over an instrumental that is so much quieter than his voice that it becomes distracting.
Another complete misstep on this album is the song “I Don’t Think U C Me (feat. Isaiah Rusk)” which features the same problem as “You Thought”: the second half is actually nice but it’s completely ruined by the unbearable first half of the song. Isaiah Rusk, the featured artist, uses one note for almost 30 seconds to flatly sing in a voice that can only be compared to nails on a chalkboard. It’s truly baffling.
All this being said, there are still songs that are worth listening to. “Mood Swings” is a funky bop. It’s excessively catchy. it’s not split into two halves of massively differing quality and the darker lyrics contrast nicely with the upbeat production.
Despite the glaring issues many of these songs have and the overall disappointment that this album was, I’m still very excited for what Teezo does in the future because while this album is a mess, he’s put out enough quality music to make me think that he’s still capable of making a great project.
