KISS THE RING

Kiss the Ring, the first album from Rome Streetz with Griselda, is a worthy testament to his literary gifts and his flexibility. Produced by Westside Gunn, the album serves up more Griselda murk in its claustrophobic samples and dorky, beat-theory loops courtesy of palace heavyweights Daringer, Camoflauge Monk, Conductor Williams and Denny Laflare. Kiss the Ring asks more of Streetz, production-wise – pushing him to pop off, snapping his elastic, bending the nimble bars he’s woven into new shapes and deploying them in ways that divulge Streetz’s versatility and Gunn’s restoration spirit. ‘Heart on Froze’ and ‘Ugly Balenciaga’s’ are great Bronx-girlfriend skits (shout-out the undersung Jon-Jon, credited as the ‘skit coordinator’) with nothing but Baby Rose, Zach-B, Jay Forrester and Freddie Joachim behind their platinum bars. It’s not a display of versatility, but it’s a flex just the same. Heave the most lugubrious, least predictable beats at Rome Streetz and he stays cool – delivering the rhymes how only a guy who’s mastered the art of dense, byzantine punchlines can: with complexity. His repertoire is deep, too. If you sometimes feel like street records are a dime-a-dozen, listen to Streetz cut through the sand with blades. Kiss the Ring’s topography is a microcosm of the Griselda house: dissonance, abstraction, dorky ad-libs – all mannerisms strongly associated with Gunn & co. Caruso and Cave are good examples of hip-hop hipsters whose approach to MCing is a studied art-form, yet their ‘damn that’s dope’-worthy bars never feel mannered. Kiss the Ring has its woes: the hook-friendly slog of the duet ‘Armed ‪‬‪Dangerous‬’ (featuring Armani Caesar, laid out like a thug-love ballad) dropped like a bad throb in the chest, the vibrato chorus snapping like a rubber band. The chemistry is off, fake – the track is like an Avengers movie without Robert Downey. Nonetheless, it’s a solid, listenable, engaging project. This year alone, Benny the Butcher, Westside Gunn and Conway the Machine released projects that sold gold, and now this. Logically, Kiss the Ring should be as beloved among hip-hop heads and hit-chasers as a Weezer album – yet, to date, it’s utterly ignored by the masses.

ROME STREETZ - KISS THE RING
RATING - 8.3/10

FAVORITE TRACKS - Big Steppa, Long Story Short, Cry Champagne

GENRE - Hip-Hop, Rap