Album Review: David Kaing – “Spirit Royale”

Released: 2011

Reviewed by: Zach Rohman

Rating: 3.1 (Out of 10)

[xrr rating=3.1/10]

First let me say I have love for people who want to use their gifts to glorify God. They just want to serve God, and I love that. The problem is some people think they have a gift when they don’t. Perhaps someone loves rap so because of their love for it they try to force their way into performing rap, when they don’t have that gift. I don’t rate people on their heart, I just rate people on their music. I pray that this review can help David Kaing grow in whatever gifts he has and continue to push him to glorifying God in whatever ways he can.

But the truth is this album is awful. The first song “Here We Come” makes it clear. On the chorus he sings, “Hear We Come”, and it’s honestly some of the most annoying singing I’ve ever heard. Once David Kaing really starts rapping you will find several issues.

First would be his flow. His flow is just awful on this album. He ends almost every single bar too early, and it gets his whole flow off. Time and time again you will find him pausing at the end of lines because he rapped too fast. Although it wasn’t as frequent of a problem, he would also start too soon on some bars and his flow was really a mess.

Mix that in with the second issue, his energy and his voice, and you have a very bad album. Whenever he raps he has so little energy in how he spits that it sounds like he is just talking. You could almost mistake this album for a spoken word album. It’s not just his energy though. This isn’t really an issue that he could fix. Even if he tried to bring a ton of energy it would just sound forced and sound bad.

The lyricism was also very poor. One of his choruses said “get it poppin/hood rockin/get it poppin/ain’t no stoppin.” It wasn’t just the lyrics themselves, because even poor lyricism can be countered by a tight flow and a little bit of energy. But with his other problems, that just made the poor lyricism show even more. I can’t stress how bad these issues really are.

There was one good thing about this album. The production. I thought the production was pretty good. If any well known tight artist would jump on these beats, they would probably have a great album. The beats were just plain tight and the production was pretty darn good. Period.

I say all this in love. I review in truth and I keep it real. I hope that nobody is discouraged by this review, and I hope that everyone just seeks to glorify God with their gifts.

Comprehensive Ratings:

1. Music – 4.5

2. Flow/Delivery – 1

3. Lyricism – 3.5

4. Content – 3

5. Creativity/Originality/Relevancy – 2

6. Credibility & Confidence – 2

7.  Personality & Character – 2

8.  Presentation Quality – 5

9.  Overall Production Quality – 6.5

10. Potential Impact – 1.5