Roc Marciano is one of those rappers who will always kill a guest verse, but hasn't yet put together a great solo album. His last album, Reloaded, was pretty good, but had very little replay value, with zero features and a similar flow and delivery on every track. At the same time, Roc's flow and delivery are both sick. The guy is easily one of the best and most technically skilled rappers right now. With this album having a lot of features and full production from Roc Marciano himself, I was pretty excited to listen to it.
From an instrumental standpoint, Roc Marciano proves himself to be a very sharp producer. Roc quickly establishes that his beats have a signature sound: old school samples and smooth instrumentation. While at first the production seems a little too samey, further listening proves some beats do stand out compared to others. My favorite beat on this album is easily the first track, Love Means. The sample is just looped and cut so well as it repeats over and over. The beat is smooth, relaxing, and just an awesome instrumental. While a number of beats on this album, such as the songs 456, Cut the Check, Drug Lords, are very peaceful and calm, there are some harder, high energy instrumentals here. The song Didn't Know has an awesome mixture of high pitched piano keys and loud, booming drums, giving it an old school hip hop feel combined with new flavor. I do have an issue with several of the beats on Marci Beaucoup. This issue is that a lot of them, particularly the ones with samples, are a little overdone. The samples are sometimes too loud, taking attention away from the rapping. This doesn't happen on that many songs, but it definitely gets a little annoying on 456, Psych Ward, and Soul Music.
The rapping on Marci Beaucoup is pretty good, overall. Roc Marciano sticks a feature on every track, giving this album a lot of personality and variety. My favorite collaboration here is easily the second song, Squeeze. This one features Ka and Guilty Simpson, and both of them kill it. Ka's laid back, quiet rapping style was perfect over this beat, and Guilty Simpson follows with a lot of energy and some nice lines. Another solid feature track is Didn't Know, which has Freeway and Knowledge the Pirate. While Knowledge the Pirate really wasn't that great here, Freeway more than made up for it. He absolutely murdered this verse, with quotables all over the song , and I just love how animated he is while rapping. The last feature song I want to talk about is the song War Scars featuring Cormega and Ag Da Coroner. There is not much to say about this one, as it was just a very good track with nice verses from all three rappers. Other good features for me were Boldy James, Evidence, Maffew Ragazino, and Blu. All of these guys made their songs better and had great verses. Roc Marciano himself was very consistent throughout this album, but almost to a fault. His verses on these songs were good, but it seemed like he didn't change anything up throughout the album. All his verses really sounded similar, with great flow, awesome wordplay, and a quiet delivery. It gets a little monotonous. I still respect how great of a rapper this guy is, though.
MARCI BEAUCOUP WRAP UP
+Roc Marciano has amazing technical rapping ability and lyrics
+The features were pretty solid for the most part
+Smooth, relaxing production with some nice samples
-Roc Marciano spits the same kind of verse on every song, gets a little boring
-Some of the songs sounded rushed
-A few of the instrumentals interfered with the rapping, creating some awkward songs
Best: Love Means, Squeeze, Didn't Know
Worst: Soul Music
Roc Marciano- Marci Beaucoup
7.4/10
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