This gon’ be your favorite song…

We should have guessed that we couldn’t go six months without a new Eric Bellinger project for our ears.  After dropping Prime as a single, he followed it up with a pretty solid EP that sticks to many of the themes that he has been following since he started his own family; love, fidelity, and commitment (and a little bragging about his comeup for good measure).

Vocally, this feels like further improvement on what we liked about Eventually, namely the dialing back on the autotune.  Yes, he still uses it but the majority of the album gives a more natural tone and allows the listener to connect to his words a lot better, especially on the love songs.  The production for the songs isn’t anything that immediately catches your attention, but it’s not so generic that each track isn’t distinct from the others despite the cohesion that you can hear through the progression.  The lyrics are pretty par for the course for Bellinger and he’s really not exploring any new themes.  The good news is that this is what he does well and this is a good listen from start to finish.

The biggest issue for this EP is a few of the songs here reminded us of other songs that he has released in the past couple of years.  Snappin & Trappin reminded us of Squad; Prime reminded us of You Can Have Them Hoes.  It should be noted that they don’t sound like exact copies, just like part twos of the originals.  There is also the fact that this doesn’t really differ that much from Cuffin Season, Parts 1 and 2 or sections of Eventually.  It doesn’t kill the vibe of the project by any means, but it probably should be expected given Bellinger’s output.  While we don’t want him to Frank Ocean it when it comes to new albums, we would like him to slow down and grow a little as an artist so that we get something that sounds a little different.

Our favorite tracks are G.O.A.T., Sometimes, and Drive By.  The most skippable track is My Check.

Clicking the shopping cart in the player takes you Spotify, but this project is available for purchase through all digital outlets.