Dave East "Survival" Album Review

Dave East

"Survival"

Album Review

By Bonds

@onebond007

One of the streets favorites, Harlem’s own 2016 XXL Freshman Dave East dropped his much anticipated debut studio album Survival last week and as expected it didn’t disappoint. With a week into the release there’s been stories circulating about album sales, budget costs and last minute edits. I’m gonna clear some of the dust the best I can and give a more clear understanding of what’s really going on and the review of the album and what makes it hot.

To catch you up let’s knock out some background information. First things first, like most hip-hop enthusiasts I’ve been rocking with Dave East since he’s been screaming “Ligghhht iitttt” back on his mixtape days and two things remain constant; 1. His consistency to his craft and 2. His integrity to his character. He’s given us six projects since being named to XXL 2016 Freshman list leading to this debut album. East isn’t out here chasing a wave or trying to give you the next best thing. No, you know exactly what you’re getting and that’s his rugged, blue collar, storytelling, street ghetto gospel. Now let’s get to it!

On this album East creatively strings together a timeline of his survival and trying to find his way in life while maintaining the balancing act of becoming a father, pursuing a career and running in the streets of one of the biggest, most notorious housing projects in this country. All of this while interjecting brief interludes of past conversation fillers that brings his fans close enough to experience his very own East Harlem upbringing. 

As if that wasn’t enough this album has an impressive feature list including Nas, Fabolous, Teyana Taylor, The-Dream, Rick Ross, and Lil Baby just to name a few. And there’s no slack in the producer department either as he’s teamed up with heavy hitters like Swizz Beatz, Timbaland, AraabMuzik to name a few as well.

First things first, this album is twenty songs spanning one hour and eighteen minutes. Some of those with short attention spans could see this as being problematic, but with this caliber of talent mixed with meaningful content , this very well may be one of the best debut albums of this decade. Over the past ten years (alongside other new emerging New York artist), I consider Dave East to be among the leaders of the new age rap coming from the East coast. Off the rip starting with the intro “They Wanna Kill You”,  he lays a track produced by Swizz Beatz,and DJ Premier doing the scratching on it. Even though East can hold his own on records, he’s proving he can do it with the hottest in the game now by dropping bangers like “Everyday” ft. Gunna.

A few days ago there were ridiculous non-credited rumors circulating first week album sales beinow and surprise, they turned out just to be rumors as the album Survival  charted at #11 just outside the top ten https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/dave-east-survival-debuts-just-shy-of-top-10-on-billboard-200-news.95899.html. With a healthy tracklist and a PR run going on right now I expect his number to keep rising while East keeps releasing singles like “Alone”. 

It’s easy to believe that Dave East would give us a certified banger like “Night Shift”, but to have the audacity to throw Lil Baby and fellow XXL Freshman classmate Kodak Back on it?!! Now that’s pure insanity … And it almost happened. See it wasn’t the disrespectful comments Kodak made about Lauren London that ultimately made Dave East take him off the song. It was the genuine love and respect one man had for another enough to hold someone accountable for what they say and that’s deeper than rap. Whether you like Dave East or not, he moves with a code of ethics that’s well respected within the industry.

You want honesty? How about a peek into the most vulnerable moments of his life; realizing that his daughter needs him more than the streets and the reality setting in that you’ll have to go through hell to get what you want …(even if that means up to five years not seeing a single dollar of revenue from your craft) are reasons why tracks like “Need a Sign” will forever be relatable favorites to his audience. 

The more I listen to this album the more it sounds like the perfect balance between gangsta and gentlemen. It has just enough gangsta to keep the streets hot and on the flipside, reciprocates just enough gentlemen, showing the lighter side and his appeal to the ladies.

Dave East bares all on his debut album and it’s exciting to think that this is just the start of his talented career as he's building an impressive acting resume as well with most recent appearances on Beats and playing Method Man on Wu-Tang: An American Saga . Like I stated before, you know exactly what you're getting with Dave East and that’s why he remains a street favorite, but check it out for your yourself and let me know how you feel about it? As always, Stay Focused & Grind Hard and holla at me @OneBond007 https://twitter.com/onebond007.