New York rapper, producer & singer/songwriter Santana Fox is back for her sophomore effort. The daughter of the late Prodigy of Mobb Deep fame, she eventually followed in her father’s footsteps making music of her own couple years after his untimely passing putting out a handful of singles up until the full-length debut Girl Next Door. Eye Candy was a crucial moment in her career not only for her producing it all by herself, but her improved lyricism too. She’s a Rebel! wasn’t necessarily as great for it’s own set of highlight tracks & has returned to drop Gunmetal.
After the intro, “Lovesick” whispers over a self-produced instrumental about how her romantic interest got her addicted whereas “Control Me” shows a bit of a rock influenced expressing that she gives no fucks. “Sigils” featuring Vicious Vampira aggressively responds to all the bitches who think they’re sweet just before “Hourglass” darkly talks about only gaining to collect & always getting the job done.
“Grasshopper” embraces a trap metal sound assuring that she’ll keep the lights on while the title track heavily addresses the people wondering how it feels to be on her level of success or notoriety. “Neuroscience” confesses to an inability of taming herself whenever the person she’s addressing speaks to her while “POV” sings about wishing she could show her partner all the tricks she has up her sleeve & what her love feels like.
Rounding out 3rd, the song “Sweat It Out” has a psychedelic soul feeling to it wanting to be taken to a higher level while “Fly on the Wall” talks about the way it’s gonna be with a person who’s dead wrong once again leaning towards her trap metal influences. “Lost Ya Mind” takes the drumless chipmunk soul route talking about her unwillingness to lose everything she’s ever built for over a dumb muhfucka while “Mr. Hyde” ends by talking about learning from the best when there isn’t any lies told there.
Spending the last 5 months finding her own sound, Santana Fox’s latest album continues to capture her artistic self-sufficiency a lot similarly to Eye Candy except this surpasses the predecessor in terms of her greatest body of work. Her production versatilely blends alternative hip hop, nu metal, boom bap, trip hop, jazz, drumless, chipmunk soul, psychedelic soul & trap metal and I appreciate her dialing it back with the features so she could focus on her range as a vocalist. I said her dad’s looking down on her proud of the musician she’s become when Eye Candy dropped & it couldn’t be truer presently.
Score: 9/10