Today's review is on No Poison No Paradise, the new album from Detroit rapper/producer Black Milk. I have always liked Black Milk, but I have never considered myself a huge fan of his work. To me, he is just an enjoyable artist at best. I have always thought his production outshines his rapping, as he can be a pretty boring rapper sometimes. Will this new, entirely self-produced album change my opinion?
To start with the beats, Black Milk's production on this project is stellar. He seems to take influences from several different types of music on this album. There are jazzy sounds, electronic sounds, classic hip hop sounds, and even rock sounds here. Even with its variety, the beats maintain a dark, solemn vibe for the majority of this album. On a lot of these beats, Black Milk doesn't try to do too much with the beats, sticking with more minimalistic sounds. One of the beats where that happens is the song Dismal, where there is really not much going on, just some creepy synthesizers and soft drums. It is a very interesting beat that has a distinct vibe to it. Another simple, but effective beat is the song Sunday's Best, which just uses some soulful choir samples and booming drums. The following song, Monday's Worst, comes in with a similar instrumental, very soulful with catchy drum sounds. This album does have some seriously funky beats, though. The first track, Interpret Sabotage, comes in with some wild electronic synthesizers that sound epic. The song Ghetto DEMF has more high pitched synthesizers which fuse nicely with the hard, fast paced drums. This album's lone instrumental track, Sonny Jr., is an interesting jazz and hip hop blend. This song has it all, the smooth horns, quick drumming, and cold pianos, topped off with a nice synth pattern that sounds very well done overall. The instrumentals on No Poison No Paradise were unique, versatile, and extremely impressive.
Aside from the beats, the highlight of the album was Black Milk's lyricism. He tells some honest, realistic Detroit hood stories on this album, letting you know where he came from. My favorite display of this was the song Perfected On Puritan Ave. Here, Black Milk paints a vivid picture of his childhood, describing everything from playing basketball with his friends to finding out a man just got jumped. It is a rather grim representation of Black Milk's past in Detroit. Another storytelling track on this album is Sunday's Best. On this song, Black Milk describes the religious family that he grew up with. He talks about having to go to church in the morning when he really didn't want to. The detail he goes into is awesome, talking about what he had to wear to church, and how he would rather just stay home and play video games. It is a terrific track that has an interesting topic, and Black Milk kills it. Many tracks on this album have one simple topic that Black Milk expands and goes into detail with. Songs like Parallels (a love story), Deion's House (dealing with a friend's mother who didn't like him), and Money Bags (people in Detroit doing anything for money).
This album's weakest link is probably Black Milk's technical rapping ability. While he is definitely not terrible, he just isn't unique at all from that standpoint. He doesn't change up his flow, and he has a pretty uninteresting voice. The only track where Black Milk really impressed me with his rapping was on the song Interpret Sabotage, but this was only because he was rapping a lot faster than usual. Of course, all of this is fine because Black Milk's lyrics are clearly the focus of the album, and that definitely works. As far as features go, there were only a few, but I didn't have a problem with any of them. I thought Black Milk and Black Thought had great chemistry on Codes and Cab Fare, and Black Thought's verse was stellar. On Ghetto DEMF, Quelle Chris jumps in for an entertaining and well executed verse.
NO POISON NO PARADISE WRAP UP
+Great topical tracks
+Black Milk's lyricism is fantastic, he can tell stories flawlessly
+Very personal and honest album
+Great instrumental variety
+The album keeps up a solemn, dark sound
-Black Milk doesn't have great technical rapping skills
Best: Codes and Cab Fare, Perfected on Puritan Ave, Dismal
Worst: X Chords
Black Milk- No Poison No Paradise
8.3/10
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