Not too soon

I was very, very disappointed with Dot Rottens latest release “R.I.P Young Dot”. After his first mixtape, and his excellent work on the O.G’s mixtape “O.G season” this was a  terrible let down. Although i never really rated Dot as one of the top mc’s (he’s at times been a bit to monotonous for my taste) i did rate him as one of the top producers. “R.I.P Young Dot” was the sound of Dot totally loosing it. No it wasn’t one of the worst grime mixtapes made, far from, but it was a  frustrating and boring failure. And after that most of what i heard from Dot, on various youtube vids, was him continuing the very odd theme he started on with “I’m a leader”, some sort of melancholy autotune gone berserk.

For these reasons i didn’t have too high expectations on the release of S.O.O.N. I was really just hoping Dot wouldn’t have gone further down a strange route of undistinguished run-of-the-mill tracks with some autotune singing in the chorus. Fortunately it seems Dot has gotten his head if not completely at least partly back in the game.  It’s obvious already on the first track “Mr baker/Crazy Comments” (after having to listen to a rather annoying attempt at humor from “Mr baker”) that Dot has highly improved his mc skills, both lyrically and flow wise. Here he comes like a grime Eminem, high pitched, fast spitting, fast rhyming, wisecracking. But als0 in more conventional grime mode he’s flow is vastly improved and convey far more emotion than on earlier works, even without crying out in a burst of auto-tune.

But most importantly Dot seem to have recovered his skills as a producer. At times this mixtape burns with creative skill, on more melancholy tracks like “The days”, “Best of me” and “No one knows”, ferocious tracks like “Show me respect” and “Talking the hardest” or simply, in grime terms, refreshingly original tracks like “Two step non step”, and “I’m not stopping”.  At best Dot has a imaginative gifted touch, a innovative and unique style so desperately needed in todays grime.

Some thing are not as good. While in general being ok, moody tracks “I’m  a professional” and “The days” makes me cringe, or occasionally makes me giggle to myself when Dot goes in hard with the autotune singing. It really does sound ridiculous. On “Best of me” i totally loose it, it’s just too fucking weird. Also the guest are not up to the quality of the members of O’G’s he used to spar with, but are  mostly pretty colorless. Only exceptions are Ice Kid, who has two great chilling verses and Voltage, who does well on his own on great bonustrack “No one knows”.

However, this is not a album, but apparently the mixtape before next mixtape, or the album, that will or will not arrive any day now, which may explain a few odd choices. First of all, 22 tracks is too many. 22 tracks is proof you don’t have proper quality control. Theres no reason to have that many tracks. I’d say 15 tracks maximum, give the others away on compilations or as free downloads or whatever. Also most of the tracks not produced by Dot feels out of place and hurt the consistency of the mixtape, none of the Faith SFX tracks are particularly good, Terror Danjahs “Ride for me”  is a quite boring commercial lovesong, only “Theres more to life” over Dizzee Rascals “Brand new Day” really feel at place. There are also some tracks i don’t see any point at all having on here. Brutal’s “Cheating” is hideous, so is “Sex time” with Griminal and Brutal. Please someone explain to me why i would want to hear about other men fucking.

With half the number of tunes i might have considered this a grime classic. It contains at least six or seven tracks i will hold as among the best of 2009. This is the sound of a artist, a artist who’s  found his way home, still perhaps on shaky legs, but with perhaps more promise than anyone i can see in the scene at the moment. I just keep my fingers crossed and hope that he will stay clear of the autotune and the dreadful lovesongs.