Cruel Summer (Review)

By Gary Lee
With a lot of group compilations dropping lately such as the A.S.A.P. Mob's "Lords Never Worry" and MMG's "Self Made Vol 2", I feel there was no body of music with such anticipation as G.O.O.D Music's "Cruel Summer", even with the push backs, Cruel Autumn Summer still remained one of the albums I couldn't wait to get my ears on. With all honesty towards the finalized release date, with the Cover Art being released and then the track listing, I was feeling the album was going to be all hype. Only having 12 songs and 4 of them we have already heard, my anticipation quickly turned into disappointment. When I got a chance to actually listen to the record I was really impressed with the whole album. A R-Kelly feature, starting the whole album, threw me way off but in the end the track "To The World" is one of my favorites. Then came the tracks we have already been blessed with such as "Mercy", "New God Flow" and "Clique", which has a monster Jay-z feature, which he killed as usual and always proves that he's a threat in the game. The track called "The Morning" starts with Raekwon The Chef, he starts the song spitting his verse like it was a Wu-Tang song then came a Common verse "I know she wanna test the 'Rari, eye on a dollar like Illuminati" was the best line in the verse. Then came a verse from G.O.O.D Music's White Nose Candy Knight, Pusha-T, spitting fire; followed by a quick verse from the Grammy Family affiliate 2 Chainz. Next came the man who had the best verse in my eye and really proved that he's a monster with the album press, radio station freestyles and the verses he laid on this album, I'm talking about Cyhi Da Prynce. "Its tickelin', when I hear what haters be whisperin', What makes you think an Illuminati would ever let some niggas in?". Lots of "Illuminati" talk on this record. ("Illuminati In Music" article coming soon). That's just part of a very well put together album but it wasn't perfect. I was also disappointed with a few things as well. No Q-Tip??? Sometime last year it was announced that Q-Tip had signed to the label. Common only on one song? Common a G.O.O.D. Og only appeared on one song on this Comp. I was also disappointed with the track listing, only having 12 songs. Over all the album is Flight approved and should be listened to.