Blac Youngsta 223 Album Review

Having his hit singles taking over clubs and radios across the country, artist Blac Youngsta recently released his highly anticipated debut album 223. The artist released this album after facing legal issues last year and makes references to his charges throughout the album. The album contains a few features from artists like Travis Scott, Lil Yachty, and French Montana to name a few but sees Youngsta carry most of the album himself.

        The artist’s music has been hard to ignore as he recently scored his first Billboard Hot 100 hit this year with the single “Booty.” With his hit singles being upbeat club-oriented songs, listeners would anticipate that the rest of the album would follow suit. This is not the case with 223 with most of the songs being slower tempo and dealing with surprisingly serious subject matter.

        The Memphis artist takes a break from trying to get the party jumping to discuss important issues going on today like violence in his city, issues he has with President Trump and taking care of his family. Songs like “Strength” and “Old Friends” are prime examples of him switching up from the party vibe while still making quality music.

        The album totals 14 tracks and surprisingly runs only 43 minutes. Youngsta seemed to take the short and sweet approach to making the album. The songs being short also helped with the flow of the album. The length of the songs makes those 43 minutes go by in a breeze. Besides the surprising serious topics being discussed, Youngsta also decided to try a different style of music on 223. The artist took a break from his usual rapping style to experiment with dancehall, which is more of a reggae style of music. The song “Forever” has Youngsta trying his hand in reggae and sees him actually singing rather than simply rapping in the song.

        All in the all the album is a good listen. Besides the dancehall record, Youngsta sticks to the street sound that his core fans enjoy and appreciate.

        A lot of times when an artist misleads fans with the singles it is a bad thing but this time it’s actually a pleasant surprise. It might sound weird at first hearing about politics and other serious topics from Blac Youngsta but if listeners look past the social media antics they will see he has a voice worth hearing on the subjects.