K-SCORE: 26
Rapper: Royce da 5'9"
As far as I can tell Royce da 5'9" is not one of the most well known rappers. But he's still cool! My buddy introduced him to me through his album "Independent's Day", which is about being independent, I think. Anyway, Royce Nickel Nine's song "I Owe You" is a fun, bouncy track. Take a listen, and then read what Kyle thought.
-Mike
Royce da 5’9” you present me with a world where you’re one of the greatest rappers ever. You give me a world where all women wear see-through clothing, where you are the H.N.I.C., where H.N.I.C means anything to anyone except people who are avid users of this site, where Notorious B.I.G. was once a sheriff of a prison (by the way, prisons have wardens not sheriffs), where 5’9” is the tallest a human being can be (not true, believe me, I wish it were), where you’re the last cowboy, and where “I-O-W-E-U-C through nickel done regrouped marked my flow” is an intelligible sentence. You live in a fictional world, Mr. 5’9”. You present me with a lie,
“I Owe You” is another victim of a rap song that would have been better had the rapper had the courage to rap about something other than rap itself. What’s it like in your mirror prison, Royce? When you’re ready, come out and join the rest of the world a pick a topic that makes sense to anyone who’s not you. This song is bad. It would be way worse too if there weren’t a couple clever rhymes in it and a few moments that make me think you could be good at this, to quote Biggie, “rapping stuff.”
Apart from the arrogant lyrics, which fail to make sense about 65% of the time, I have a problem with the style of “I Owe You.” Royce, you stretch all of your words out as if they have the same number of syllables, as if you’re desperately trying to stick with the beat and match what you have written in front you to what’s playing behind you. You squeezed “comprehend” into the third verse so poorly I could barely comprehend it. The flow of the song is terrible because of this, and the beat would be better served if you weren’t rapping.
I’m having flashbacks to Cam’Ron as well, Royce, because you don’t have a central message. Each verse is different, but not connected to anything else in the song. Unlike Cam’Ron, however, your lyrics aren’t obscure references and non sequiturs, they’re just random thoughts you had about rap, or what’s in the recording studio, or threats with no purpose or direction. One minute figurines and trophies are going into a coffin and the next minute you’re mentioning how you’re going to “touch every style you could think of on this album.” What’s the point of “I Owe You?” Why is it called that?
This bring me to the worst part. The chorus. Ugh, in addition to the garbage I quoted at the end of my first paragraph, you mention that you “O-W-E bitches” your “dick.” Do you know what the word ‘owe’ means? If you do, you should be ashamed of yourself. If you don’t, you should be ashamed of yourself, but for a different reason. Don’t make a song that uses that simple word you don’t know so much. Also, if you’re going to spell out a word, in the chorus no less, so it’s constantly repeated, don’t surround that word with “I,” “you,” and “see.” Those words are phonetically also letters. Your chorus was already stupid, and you went ahead and made it tough to understand for linguistic reasons.
I liked the line about how you’ve “been rippin’ this sh*t since this little piggy was ya toe,” and the song without you would have been okay, so I’m giving “I Owe You” a twenty-six. Upset by that rating, Royce da 5’9”? So what? I don’t owe you anything. (That’s how it’s used.)