AKA's Levels VS Cassper Nyovest's Tsholofelo - Album Reviews

You knew this was coming...Everyone who's heard both of these albums is definitely comparing the albums whether they are objective to the beef or not. It's an exciting time for our hip-hop scene right now. All our top artists aren't half stepping when it comes to their releases. Reason, Kwesta, L-tido, Da-Les, Maggz, K.O, Kid-X and more are dropping nothing short of good music at the moment. But the 2 people at the top right now are AKA and Cassper. And we can't have 2 kings. There can only be one...Their beefing isn't anything personal if you think about it, it's just an argument of who had the biggest song at the time Congratulate and Doc Shebeleza had the scene at its feet; free downloads versus music that was paid for. That's a discussion for another day though, let's get down to the 2 projects.

IN GENERAL:
What's nice about these albums is that the music is different; they both rap yes but manage to establish their own identities. Cassper bringing his kasi appeal and kwaitoish influence and somehow fusing it with more African music somehow which is quite refreshing. And AKA taking urban hip-hop to its highest peak, you trully can't get better than that right now. So you can listen to both albums without thinking you're listening to the same thing over and over again. I have picked up that in terms of influence Kanye seems to have inspired more of Cassper's album abd Drake more of AKA's.

QUALITY WISE:
Aka revealed he's been working on this album for a couple of years and you can tell by the quality of the songs. The quality of the mixing and mastering is on point and is leaps and bounds above that of Cassper's album; Aka's sound engineering background and the Red Bull recording studios really counted here I'm guessing.

RATING:
Rating an album shouldn't be as complicated as everyone makes it out to be and rating it out of 5. That doesn't make sense. If an artist puts out an album with 12 songs, you should surely just rate it out of those 12 songs (each song out of 1). That being how many songs do you think are worthy to be rated good out of the 12, then create a percentage out of that and change it to a rating out of 10 for comparison. Let's test drive my new rating method with these 2 albums. Luckily I've praised both artists on this blog BEFORE THEIR BEEF so you can't accuse me of taking sides hehehehe.

TRACK by TRACK rating (Each track rated out of 1):
#LEVELS
1. Levels                         (Rating - 0.5) Not much of a poetic man
2. Sim Dope                    (Rating - 1)
3. Run Jozi                      (Rating - 1)
4. Sunshine                      (Rating - 0.5) When a big artist is featured we expect more. It's an ok song
5. Congratulate                (Rating - 1.5) *Cross over single - more Pop than just a Hip-Hop song. EXTRA CREDIT
6. All eyes on me             (Rating - 1) Massive blow up potential in released as a single.
7. Daddy Issues               (Rating - 0.5)
8. Let me show you          (Rating - 0.75)
9. Kontrol                         (Rating - 1)
10. Pressure                      (Rating - 1)
11. Jealousy                      (Rating 0.75)
TOTAL out of 11 = 9.5 out of 11 which is 86% and 8.6 out of 10.

Comments:
  • Cover could've been better. Simple is always best.
  • 2 extra tracks would've been nice.
#TSHOLOFELO
1. I hope you bought it                        (Rating - 1) The insight on this song aswell as Cold Hearted is brilliant
2. Style Se Legit                                 (Rating - 1) Original take on "Kwaito " infused with hip Hop, same with Ghetto Olympics
3.Cold Hearted                                  (Rating - 1)
4. Tsholofelo                                      N/A
5. Welcome to my life                         (Rating - 1) Ntukza just takes the song to a new level bringing in the Teargas element to the track, perfect feature.
6. Alive                                              (Rating 0.5) The change in voice baffles me
7. Phumakim                                      (Rating - 0.5)
8. Skeptebaba                                    (Rating - 1)
9. Ghetto Olympics                             (Rating - 1)
10. Tsibip                                           (Rating - 1)
11. Doc Shebeleza                              (Rating 1) Club Banger
12. Shake'a Letheka                           (Rating 0.5) When a big artist is featured we expect more. It's an ok song
13. Gusheshe                                      (Rating 1)
14. Bad One                                       (Rating 0.5)
15. Girlfriend                                       (Rating 0.25) The execution of the "love me" and "love me not" is poor
16. She loves me                                 (Rating 0.25)
17. Love is F******* blind                 (Rating 0.5) Execution is not on point here aswell
18. Travel the world                             (Rating 0.75)
19. Lerato                                            (Rating 1.25) The fusing with the Western type music is brilliant. EXTRA CREDIT

TOTAL: 18 out of 18 which is 78% and 7.8 out of 10

Comments:
  • There's a few songs that could've been taken off the album. 14, 15, 16 for example.
  • The quality of the recording and mastering can get way better.
The album sales will have the last word though... Will we find those out though?
Your views on the albums? Tweet me @Ttigersstory to share your views