Album Reviews: Statik Free and The Evening News EP - Statik Selektah with Freeway and Termanolgy

One of my beefs with hip hop nowadays is how fast cats make music. You got cats bragging how they made an album in a week or producers talking about they make 50 beats a minute and truth be told, that's why the bulk of music that drops sounds the way it does. There's no way Michael Jackson makes Thriller or even Bad for that matter in a week. You think "Illmatic", "Ready to Die" or "The Chronic" was made in a weekend or even a month for that matter? Naw.

So, the other day I came across this Statik Selektah and Freeway EP "Statik Free" and after doing the knowledge on it, I find out that they recorded this EP in 24 hours...word?!?! Now, Statik is no stranger to this concept cause he banged out an album with Saigon "All In A Days Work" a minute ago that was dope, but could recording music like this REALLY be a good thing? Well, between Statik and Freeway's "Statik Free" EP and Statik and Termanolgy's "The Evening News" we're about to find out.

The "Statik Free" EP checks in with 7 tracks and starts off kinda slow for my taste with "Back At It" and "The Flow" but quickly picks up with "I'm In The Hood" with Reek Da Villian and "And It Don't Quit" with Jakk Frost and Tek from Smif n Wessun. And not for nuthin but with lines like "I'm half King Kong/half Godzilla/they call me half mc/half drug dealer/half Prince Purple Rain/half Mike Thriller/half verse killer/half mic killer/I got that terminator flow/half man half machine/my arsenal is half hand guns/half machines/my team move like half seals/half marrines/my drug stash Irish/half white, half green/But I'm trying to stay away from my block ways/but n-gga I'm a gun/I'm half Megatron, half Shockwave" this dude Jakk Frost is showing he's gonna be a problem. Not to mention Statik's proven he's got that "Brownsville/MOP" sound on lock with "From the Streets" featuring Lil Fame and Termanolgy. But the jewel of this EP to me is Free's ode to my hometown "P.A.". With lines like "If you from PA, you know where we shop at, Dr. Denim, King of Prussia, Sneaker Villa" had me wanting to jump on 95 North and head up to my hood and get a chicken cheesesteak from my spot Pagonos!

With the "Evening News" EP, Statik and Term keep the magic going from last year's "1982" album. "Money Is Reality" with Action Bronson and "Chill As Hell" are both sickening and Term KILLS his verse on "Timothy McVeigh" when he spits "I look at my enemies, like I look at Kennedy's, they're all dead." "Baby Mama" featuring Josh Xantus has Term talking about his two baby moms and trying to hold it down with child support over an ill track but to me the chorus falls short on this one.

At the end of the day, both of these EP's are dope and for Statik to have been able to pull off this stunt (cause recording albums in a day is like Evil Knievel jumping over the grand canyon and surviving) 3 times and be successful at it says a lot about how dope of a producer he is. And let's not sleep on Free and Term either cause I've seen a lot of mc's struggle to record over a week's span let alone in a day. My only question is if cats can make music this good in a day, I wanna see what they could do in a couple of months in the lab? If that ever happens, we might just be looking at the next 5 mic classic.

Statik Free: 3.5 outta 5
The Evening News: 3.5 outta 5