Kodak Black - Painting Pictures ALBUM REVIEW

[Intro: Anthony Fantano]
Ahhhhh, hey everybody. It's Fandongo Antwongo here, the Internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of the new Kodak Black album, Painting Pictures.

[Review Part 1: Anthony Fantano]
Kodak Black is a Florida rapper, who doesn't, who doesn't just paint pictures, he picture paints. Basically, this is his new record, which he named after one of the most perplexing lines off of his last project, Lil Big Pac, a tape I don't really like. I won't go too deeply into why. I could waste this entire video talking about why. You can just find the reviеw and watch that.

I will say this, though: Painting Pictures is Kodak Black's most well-groomed and producеd and recorded album so far, to the point where I no longer feel like I'm listening to a bad demo of a guy who can't pronounce words all that well. I feel like I'm getting a better picture of who Kodak Black is as an artist, where his influences and his reference points lie.

Now, that's not to say he's wowing me or blowing me away or channeling those influences all that well. I mean, there are elements of his style and of his delivery that reminds me of a very seedy, young, gritty Gucci Mane, but he doesn't have the swagger or the charisma to really pop out of the mix. Any chance of that is smothered by the really squeaky, awkward tone of his voice, which is hardest to listen to when he insists on singing "eh-yeh-yeh-yeh-yeh-yeh-yeh-yeh" on a track, or when he slurs his words so hard that he's just mowing over consonants with his vowels.

And there are other moments on this album where the vulgarity of his lyrics reminds me of Lil Wayne, but he doesn't have the ability to write a punchline or a joke in the way that Wayne does, so his vulgarity doesn't really have a bit of humor at the end of it to kind of soften the blow, you know? He just kind of says these really raw, weird, and somewhat gross statements about pussy, for example, all over this album, and just kind of lets it hang out there.

Which brings me to a little segment I want to do in this review...

[The Worst Bars on This Kodak Black Album: Anthony Fantano]
The Worst Bars on This Kodak Black Album.

This one's good, where he says he gets stupid to the point where I guess he's autistic? Here's one where he says he makes the pussy feel like mac and cheese, and a few more other amazing comparisons where he says he gets that pussy wetter than chicken noodle soup, the pussy sounds like ramen noodle soup, and the pussy also sounding like he's...stirring up some gumbo! Damn!

Here's a classic:
I'm swaggin', I got flavor, I got sauce, call me Ragu
I love my baby pussy, uh...(laughing)

I'm swaggin', I got flavor, I got sauce, call me Ragu
I love my baby girl pussy bald, call her Caillou

This one particular track titled "Reminiscing" has a feature from A Boogie wit da Hoodie, and Kodak drops a line saying:
I got a booger in my nose, A Boogie on the chorus

Here is:
Jimmy Neutron with the rocket
...actually, that line's kinda...it's kinda dope.

But on the fourth bar of this hook over here, Kodak Black makes mention of Medicaid, I guess to kind of remind us that the United States is the only industrialized nation without a single-payer, universal healthcare system. Come on, guys, stop fucking up. Even Kodak Black knows this shit's fucked.

And I don't even want to go into the logic of this final line, but it's a love song where Kodak Black says to the love interest of the track:
I'm here to stay, I love you like you're my kid - like you my kid
He loves them like they're his kid. Uh...
And by the way, I want you to HAVE my kid
(explosion sound effect) This person, you love them like they're your offspring, but then you want to have offspring with them?

[Review Part 2: Anthony Fantano]
Sadly, most of the bars on this record are not as gutbustingly hilarious. We just kind of have a lot of violent, druggy, hypersexual gangsterisms that you might have heard on other artists' records or other Kodak Black records. And as I think I said in my last review, I do not doubt Kodak Black's legitimacy. I am 100% sure he is with this shit. But in a way he's his own worst advocate, because on this album and on his previous projects, too, he repeatedly says things that would make the average listener take him less seriously.

I feel almost bad in a way, because it just seems like Kodak Black blatantly lacks the lyrics and the voice to really express and get across his true grit. Every once in a while he does spit a bar and he does make a statement in a line that I think accurately and vividly portrays the very hard upbringing that he had, how dark and soul-crushing and how awful his surroundings were when he was young. But these moments just kind of feel like, you know, little flickers, little glimmers, little itty-bitty flashes in the pan.

So, I mean, I'm kind of left just not knowing what exactly the context is in which I would enjoy or I could foresee a Kodak Black song or project working. I mean, I am aware of the fact that he is very popular, he does have a lot of fans, but there's nothing really about his music that makes me want to listen to it in the forefront of my mind. I mean, his vocals really kind of turn me off. Not only that but I can't really dive into his lyrics without either being bored or laughing, and in my opinion it doesn't really have the mood of party music, it doesn't really have the mood of vibe music where it just kind of merely lays there in the background.

I mean, this is easily his most well-produced project yet, as I said earlier, and the beats are certainly pleasant. They're good on the ears. But Kodak Black's voice is just so odd that it just kind of ruins any chance of this being a listen where it's just like, "Yeah, this is just, like, you know, feel-good vibin', I'm just, like, smoked out, I'm just high out of my mind, I'm just having a good time, I'm just setting the mood" type of music. His voice is just too clumsy and uneasy to facilitate that feel.

Outside of the better structured songs, outside of the better production and the lyrics being more intelligible, there aren't too many silver linings to this cloud. I mean, even the Young Thug feature on this thing is easily one of the most squawky and terrible Young Thug features I've ever heard on a project.

While I can acknowledge that this project is better than most of what Kodak Black has released in the past, if not better than everything he's released in the past, it's still not for me. I'm feeling a light to decent 4 on this thing. Tran -

[Outro: Anthony Fantano]
- sition. Have you given this Kodak Black a listen? Did you love it, did you hate it? What would you rate it? You're the best, you're the best. What should I review next? Hit the like if you like, please subscribe, and please don't cry. Just leave an angry comment in the comment if you're angry. Make sure that you continue to be a healthy boy. Keep on smoking that broccoli, and, um, yeah, that's gonna be it. Links and videos next to my head that you should check out. Official website. Subscribe to the channel. Kodak Black, Painting Pictures, forever!