Description

1LP Vinyl – BBG1087

On Don’t Smoke Rock—Rock’s first full-length collaboration since 2011’s Monumental with Smif-N-Wessun—his anointed partner is Smoke DZA. Their album plays like a wintertime drive through Harlem in a Bentley with black-tinted windows, and they swerve together with pure confidence. It especially suits DZA; a prolific working MC with blunted flow and to-the-point storytelling skills, he has struggled to distinguish himself in the crowded world of NYC street rap revivalists. Though he might not possess the crackling lyrical loops of Action Bronson, the bitter wordplay of Ka, or the flashy sheen of brothers Westside Gunn and Conway, the Harlemite’s throwback cadences are a solid foil for the uptown cool of Rock’s crisp soul samples and tough drums.