MIXTAPE REVIEW: J.Walk “Progression”

J.Walk is a great unsigned artist. He knows the importance of marketing, and has effectively built the hype needed to have anticipation for his mixtape at a good pitch. That tends to be half the battle these days. The other half is actually delivering on the project. So what’s the verdict?

J.Walk’s flow is great, so it makes me extremely happy that for the first song, he spits something A Capella. It’s better than some people’s mixtapes. Seriously. The next song, “Chapter One”, manages to be smooth yet hard edged. Not much unlike J.Walk himself. The track is a rap song your dad would like, and is the mixtape’s true opener. The track after is a great one. “J.Walk’s Back” is a “Best Of Both Worlds” cover, and it’s the perfect comeback track for J.Walk. He rides the beat perfectly, and his features do well, and end up remembered and not forgotten.

“Encore” is beautiful as well. J.Walk manages to actually channel Jay-Z a bit. I don’t need to tell anyone if that’s a good thing or not. His lyrics are more passionate here, but it has moments of great technical skill as well. I think the audio clips got to be a bit much, though. It took me out of the song for too long. Luckily, when he comes back he KILLS it. You forget all about the time you spent wondering why you were listening to an audio clip that didn’t enhance the song at all.

“Funeral Mxsic” is a moody, almost haunting production, but it stays electric under J.Walk’s pulsing delivery. It never get boring, though it rides the line often. The key here is J.Walk & Graphik’s flow. It manages to save the song from a sure skip-over. “Believers” is a little boring however, and it’s monotone chorus doesn’t do anything to help. This track is pure filler.

“J.Walk Got A Flow” is cool, but fails to reach the point it could have. It’s not as passionate, and doesn’t have a s much feeling behind it as the production makes it seem. But it does a good job of stringing you along. “Interlude” should NOT exist. You already made an entrance with a song with no beat, so you really should not do that for this song. But it happens anyway. It ends up being a less inspired, less impressive version of the intro, and it isn’t even the outro.

“Life Rapper” is a great song, but it’s almost a too little, too late situation. “Outro” isn’t even a song, it’s a thank you track, in which J.Walk gives thanks to everyone who supports him. The last song on the project, “Fredrick, Maryland” is an ode to his hometown. It’s not particularly amazing, but it is great fun. I imagine that people from there can use this as an anthem of sorts.

J.Walk is a great rapper, and Progression is not a bad mixtape. However, it’s faults are glaring. Imagine a brand new Mercedes, and the only thing wrong with it is that it doesn’t have any tires. That’s the Progression for me. Great mechanics, perfect execution when it comes to it’s delivery. It just didn’t have the wheels to move it along for me. I found myself wanting to get to the next song quite often. Especially after the 5th or 6th song. I think once J.Walk gets a project going with original tracks, this problem could be rectified. Until then however, the “progression” is there, it just isn’t as much as J.Walk might hope for.

I give it 3 Spins out of 5.

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