WRITER’S FAVORITE TRACKS: “Ball in the net,” “Iteriba,” “DaddyLovesYou,” “Illy Bomaye”.
Illbliss is still torn between his roots as a crucial emcee/LYRICIST and his affinity to have a career that PAYS!
Rap has never been fair!
Five albums and over a decade on the scene, illbliss has earned the genre’s elder statesman honorary. while most of his career, the vet has been more confusing than not, as it gets with every other act that has fallen in the same dilemma of balancing a profitable career and being an embodiment of the culture as an emcee with ‘witty, head scratching lines’.
With ‘illy Bomaye’, illbliss is back as a first time father, label executive with more gwap (rich) as he tries to make us believe, still reflective and addressing naysayers – oh well. illbliss’ pen game has been an issue for a while now or he has made it so? but IllBliss is rapping from the get go on ‘illy Bomaye’ project and settles one thing once and for all.
A little history, way back to 1974 where a boxing match took place. ‘Bomaye’ is a congolese word for ‘Kill him’ popularized when Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman. The boxing legend enjoyed so much goodwill from the Congolese crowd that they screamed ‘Ali Bomaye’ which translates to ‘Ali, Kill him’. With that set on, iLLBliss expectedly rode on a purpose to murder but the long running rapper is not as confrontational on this project. Instead, He tells of how long his money is on three out of nine tracks.
This was the perfect time for ILLY to do the victory dance and he did but his dance is not as convincing! ‘Money is the only metric’ but still not convincing!
Bomaye is reflective, the title track is a honest piece of statement on an instrumentation driven by the strings, it gets as reflective as it could get. Being debated as a technical lyricist is still a situation with ILLY with popular belief amplified by the ‘Lyricist on the roll’ win in 2016. The thing is; we or he has been here before.
With just his contribution to a track, Major Bangz makes another solid outing with crushing beat for ‘Ball in the Net’ and Illy opens with a torched-earth verse and nod-worthy lyrics on football references. ‘Iteriba’ is on BAM level off Jay-Z’s 4:44 album, yes I said it! low likability is no impediment to his art, as he shines when he actually takes this up but still in most cases, he makes it a bit more confusing as he worries in and out. On most of ‘Illy Bomaye’ He raps with an all-out relentlessness and simply wills many tracks as he pleases.
On ‘Over and Over’, illbliss is inconvincing; high energy numbers like ‘Buba’ and ‘Ball in the net’, ILLY shines while on ‘Daddy Loves You’ and title track, ILLY is at god level. ILLY as a storyteller is enough to make them album highlights. The beautiful thing? He is an OG and Next time, he should spend more time telling these stories.
This is a toast to ILLY, the story teller!
Buy ILLY Bomaye album here.
by @DirtyHiphophead, a writer and long serving hiphop head | Opinions expressed here are those of the writer only and doesn’t in anyway reflect the opinion of SOUNDCITY or her parent company.
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