Rick Ross Sounds Back In His Zone on “Black Dollar"
Following the trend of random album drops, the self-proclaimed King of Miami, Rick Ross, only gave founds a few days’ warning before dropping his latest mixtape, “Black Dollar.” With Ross’s last release, “Hood Billionaire”, falling pretty short of fan and critical expectations, it’s clear that Ross made sure to take his time with this massive, 17-record, mixtape. Ross’s lyricism and flow is still the style he’s been known for these past several years, but unlike Hood Billionaire, Black Dollar brings a freshly baked feel from the Maybach Music founder.
The opening record, “Foreclosures” is a solid introduction. The song finds Ross bringing up his immense appreciation of where he came from, but how he is now set on completing even bigger dreams than the ones he had before. Record-by-record, hedonism and being at the top is the general topics of “Black Dollar” 17 pieces, but fans can expect some mature and socially-conscious subject matter on the song “We Gon’ Make It”, where Ross discusses the recent civil rights issues that have been taking place in the United States.
From a featured-artist standpoint, you’ll be seeing many names either from, or who highly associated with, the Maybach Music camp. Listeners can expect to hear features from multiple artists like Meek Mill, Wale, Future, The Dream, and even currently incarcerated, Gucci Mane. The record that really sticks out in this category is “Take Advantage.” Future’s signature one-part singing one-part rapping verse brings a very unforced and organic feel to Ross’s individual style for this particular song. Despite relative silence over the past few years, The Dream shows that you’ve been missing his signature sound without even knowing it on “Money Dance.” All the features on the album are generally solid, but none are so good that they at any point overshadow Rick Ross’s own performance, which has surely proven to be for the better on this particular project.
Overall, Rick Ross fans ought to be quite satisfied with “Black Dollar.” While it certainly isn’t Ross’s greatest release, and the 17-song track list could have afforded to be cut down a handful of songs, “Black Dollar” quickly and effectively shows that Ross doesn’t plan on slipping into musical irrelevancy any time soon.
Royal Blue Rating: 4/5 Stars