Album Review: Tru2DaName – “Yours Truly”
Tru2DaName – “Yours Truly”
Released: 2011
Reviewed by: Joshua Dwight
Rating: 7.16 (Out of 10)
[xrr rating=7.16/10]
At a first glance it’s very apparent that he is not from America. Carrying a heavy accent and a Bible, Tru2DaName is a rapper who brings a touch of UK to the hip-hop scene bringing a little bit of salt to the main course meal if you feed off of hip-hop and urban music of the likes.
The UK based rapper has described his new project”Yours Truly” as “What I do, who I am and where I am from. All of the songs fit into one of these categories and listening to this is going to be like reading me. I plan to be here for a while so to help you get used to me, I present ‘Yours Truly’.”
Is it an accurate description? Most definitely. The album is exactly that, Tru2DaName tells you who he is, what he does, and doesn’t even have to tell you where he is from! As he shares his story he infuses the Gospel message into his story and brings an uplifting and encouraging message.
The mixtape features collaborations with Jay Dolph, fellow ForeRunnaz, Jahaziel and E Tizz and many more, and also features production from Ghetto Ace, Emvy, V-Man, Lionel from SkyBoy Records and J Williams who also featured on S.O.’s “So It Begins” Album
The mixing and production held up to a fairly decent high standard, and with UK artists emerging onto the markets it’s sure to hit a sweet spot. I at first heard a couple tracks and thought that it would just be another mix-tape, but I was surprised that the quality was beyond your traditional mix-tape, and was done with exceptional quality.
Songs that grabbed my attention the most were: “It’s Finished”, “He’s Alive”, and “My Story”. The song I felt that was the strongest amongst those three was “It’s Finished”. At first I thought it was a goofy track with the intro to it, but then Tru2DaName turned the heat up and set a tone of flaming lyricism to the table.
My conclusion to the whole project is quite simple: “Not Bad”. I’ve heard many projects and heard many artists on various skill levels where you take the bitter with the sweet, and this in my opinion is one of those projects. It simply is “Not Bad” in fact it’s not that bad at all. It’s a decent project and I would mention his name to my friends as someone worth checking out, but I leave the ultimate decision to the listener. If you like UK style rap this may just be what your looking for.
Link to “Yours Truly’ FULL ALBUM: http://www.yousendit.com/download/T2dkUXVrdGpENlFpR01UQw
Link to Single “24 Year Old V.I.R.G.I.N.: http://youtu.be/7Dc95bq6hDo
Link to Music Video for ‘Hard for The King’: http://youtu.be/9R1LLJqUSEU
Comprehensive Ratings:
• Music: 5 of 10
• Flow / Delivery: 6 of 10
• Lyricism: 6.8 of 10
• Content: 7 of 10
• Creativity / Originality / Relevancy: 8 of 10
• Credibility / Confidence: 7.2 of 10
• Personality / Character: 7.9 of 10
• Presentation Quality: 7.7 of 10
• Overall Production Quality: 8 of 10
• Potential Impact: 8 of 10
