Joe Budden- Escape Route Review

1.Intro
2. Anti
3. Never Again
4. World Keeps Spinning
5. Forgive Me
6. State Of You
7. Good Enough
8. No Comment
9. Connect Four
10. Freight Train
11. Tito Santana (feat. Wale)
12. Long Gone (feat. Young Chris)
13. We Outta Here (feat. Royce Da 5′9″, Joell Ortiz & Crooked I)
14. Clothes On A Mannequin

It’s Joey! That’s what you will hear throughout this album. It’s like Joe Budden is trying differentiate himself from the latest Slaughterhouse success. Ever sense, the four man wrecking crew introduce themselves to the world, the guys have generated a lot of hype behind them. This Joe Budden’s album is said to be the greatest of his career. Better than all the Mood Muzik’s and greater than The Padded Room. I’m not going to lie, The Padded Room is a pretty good album. That’s a huge statement, but we are not going to go into all that. We are going to look at this 14 track album and see if it’s worthy enough to put in my iPod. It’s… It’s.. It’s that *mumble* *mumble* MUSIC!


Lyrics 9- Joey is not an overly lyrical rapper. He won’t smack you with punchlines every four lines, but he will say something every now and then that will make you say… WOW. I think that’s the reason why Slaughterhouse just clicked. It was Onslaught of punchlines and during Joe’s verse, he just sets you up… right in the kisser. His whole board game analogy was kind of elementary in “Connect Four”, but it’s better than 90% of the things other rappers are coming up with. Not only is Joey a random punchliner, Joe is probably the most emotional rapper in the industry today. I think I have said this plenty of time before, but if you listen to the gap between Escape Route and The Padded Room you would hear the emotionless raps that come out of your speakers day to day. The song “Never Again” and “Clothes On a Mannequin” are prime examples. The guy is still talking about Def Jam.Beats 8- The beats are becoming typical when it comes to Joey. Not to say they are wack, but these beats are what you come expect from a Joe Budden album. It’s slow dark rock samples with a chipmunk (old Kanye) type chorus. Again, there’s nothing wrong with it. To be quite frank, I believe that the songs without a rock sample had no place on the album. This includes the Slaughterhouse song, even though they all got off on it. This song didn’t fit the mood of the rest of the album and it just felt like they just dropped a song in the mix.There really not much more to say than that. “Tito Santana” is different because it was on the 9th Wonder and Wale mixtape, and “We Outta Here” along with the song with Young Chris doesn’t really belong on the album. Other than that, I liked the beats.Concept 7- Besides a couple songs that mentioned Escape Route, it did not feel like a sequal to The Padded Room. I mean there were skits on the Padded Room that showed him going to the insane asylum, but I can’t say the same for this album. It’s just a sequel by name I guess, or maybe Joey has something cooked up for the next one. I really don’t know. I do know that this album was supposed to be a sequel and it really didn’t live up to one. From right now, I am not calling this album an album anymore. It’s a mixtape. The sound quality doesn’t warrant it the title album. Honestly, it sounds like Mood Muzik 4 without DJ OnPoint. “Is this what you want?” Joey also goes through songs without hooks, which is another characteristic of a mixtape. I guess it’s a good thing because he’s not that very good at hooks. Listen to “World Keeps Spinning” and you’ll see what I mean. I guess it’s not bad, but it’s not very good if you have bad sound quality and you are calling it an album. That’s pretty much my only gripe.Dope Tracks3. Never Again- The emotion Joey pours out onto the dark rock sample track is dope. It’s what he does best.9. Connect Four- The whole analogy with the board games was pretty cool as I mentioned above.13. We Outta Here (feat. Royce Da 5′9″, Joell Ortiz & Crooked I)- Even though this song doesn’t belong on the album, the group kills it yet again. The whole slow motion to regular motion on Joe’s voice was dope and Joell is a beast. Simple and plain.14. Clothes On A Mannequin- Another emotional Joey song that talks about how he is perceived and how other people want him to be. I feel like this song at times.Not So Much Tracks4. World Keeps Spinning- I don’t like this song. It just doesn’t flow and the hook is horrible.Conclusion- If you have a computer and you like hip-hop, download it… Legally download it.Verdict 8/10