Opening
track “The Seed" is over within 90 seconds. K'naan
has been helped by a production team and a writing team, killing off his
lyricism with a repetitious chorus. Likewise, "Gold In Timbukto"
enters and leaves without any real character.
The lyrics are okay at best, with K'naan
spitting his life views. He raps: "But life goes on how ironic, If I
could do it over I'd probably smoke chronic," poorly referencing Tupac
Shakur
in the process. He used to be blunt with his lyrics, for example on the
original "If The Rap Gets Jealous" he raps: "So
good things come to those who wait. Sure, I've waited about pop-pop-pop-pop. That's four cousins
shot."
Coldplay's "Lost" makes a surprising appearance
on the fourth track "Better", a poptastic
Wavin
Flag referencing jam. The hook is pretty much awful and meritless,
same with the tedious verses. "Waiting Is a Drug" fails to make its
mark, like the fifth track "Simple", both are forgettable and feature
the pop production we hear on a regular basis at 3pm on Radio 1. The same
production reaches a record low on the pre-release
single "Is Anybody Out There?" Nelly Furtado
makes an appearance, just her name warrants
this track the genre pop instead of hip-hop. The shift from a underprivileged
hip-hop icon to a privileged pop icon is drastic and this
track only highlights the lack of imagination K'naan
has in his lyricism. Eight people have writing credits on this track, so we
can't direct all the pop criticism to K'naan.
The
main bulk of Country, God or the Girl features writing credits by people
other than K'naan. "Hurt Me Tomorrow" annoyingly uses autotune.
It's one of the singles and it's hardly surprising really. The lyrics reveal
nothing, probably down to the writing team -
Ryan Tedder, Evan Bogart and Noel Zancanella
all get credit. RedOne is part of the production
team on this album and his presence
can be felt on the terrible track "The Sound of My Breaking Heart".
The acoustic guitar riff and bland drum programming will remind listeners of
the eurodance group Vengaboys.
I'm not going to beat around the bush, this is straight up horrendous.
Think of a primary school disco with cheesy 90s tunes, yeah... That's “The
Sound of My Breaking Heart”...
Collaborations
have always been a key feature for hip-hop albums, so when Bono
popped up on "Bulletproof Pride", I cried. Well that's an
overstatement, but what on earth is Bono
doing here? This is an actual nightmare and K'naan
needs to get out of it. Listening to this track summarises the album in itself.
K'naan
released three moderately unique albums in the last decade; it's become evident
that he no longer has something to say. "70 Excuses" is a perfect
example of an artist clawing for lyricism. His collaboration with Nas
on "Nothing To Loose" is the best track here. K'naan
delivers a pathetic opening verse, but Nas
saves the entire album with his verse.
Country,
God or the Girl is a
tasteless album. The production is flat and K'naan's
lyricism is completely off-putting. His ego takes control for the most part of
the album, such as with “Better” where he raps: "I'm only getting
better." On one of his worst tracks to date, he says: "But
life goes on how ironic," he should of mocked his direction and
mashed these two separate lyrics together to create 'I'm
only getting better, how ironic'. All the singles are generic and the whole
album is commercial baloney.
~Eddie
3.4
