Vinnie Paz: Season of the Assassin

Vinnie Paz is the head emcee from the underground rap group with the coolest name, Jedi Mind Tricks. Being the front man of a group with such an acclaimed track record, Vinnie has become synonymous with the JMT name. Looking to distance himself from such, he released his solo album, Season of the Assassin, without a trace of his roots in sight. No DJ Stoupe The Enemy of Mankind (JMT producer), no longtime collaborators such as Jus Allah, no green or red lightsabers. Nothing. Instead, Vinnie Paz enlists an array of producers and guest artists to create a 22 track long album; would this recipe manifest a quality album, or would it instead cripple the project?

One of my favorite things about Jedi Mind Tricks is the production; Stoupe is a gourmet chef when it comes to production.  Whether it’s an eerie piano loop or sample, you had a sense that each beat was extensively crafted around Vinnie and his lyrics. On Season of the Assassin, the number of producers that Vinnie Paz works with drastically changes from 1 to 17. On one hand, the producers do a great job complimenting Vinnie. On the first song of the album, “Beautiful Love”, Shuko does an exemplary job of creating a hard hitting, sample driven beat to match Vinnie’s aggressive style. DJ Muggs also executes by creating an eerie, dark beat for Vinnie to spit on in “No Spiritual Surrender”. Moss implements a key piano loop on “Keep Moving On” and Vinnie on a Madlib track such as “Aristotle’s Dream” is a great treat. However, there are slip ups in the production that are too much to overcome. “Monster’s Ball” produced by Stu Bangas has high pitched piano keys and does not fit Vinnie in any way, shape or form. “Aint Shit Changed” incorporates a lot of synth, along with a throwaway hook that makes the track forgettable. Add songs like, “Pistolvania” and “Street Wars” with instrumentals that aren’t anything special and you have a mixed bag production wise. The production is up and down, and lacks the stability that could have come with one producer.

Lyrics are the strong part of this album. Vinnie Paz is known for his angry, multisyllabic, controversial rhymes and they are exemplified here. Right off the bat on “Beautiful Love” Vinnie throws mean, nasally bars at the listener, exactly what they expected to hear. Vinnie showcases his lyrical prowess in one liners on several songs: “Righteous Kill”- “I’m a fucking thunderstorm, you a light shower/ You a bitch, you shoot and miss like Dwight Howard”, “Bad Day”- “This bitch laying next to me, she look like Cashis Clay/ Gotta get out of here before she ask me to stay”, and Role of Life- “All I think about is slaughtering ya’ll/ This little muthafucker named Charles Hamilton is harder than ya’ll”. The album ends on a nice note, as Vinnie expands a bit and tells a heart wrenching tale about his father in law. The sincerity is instantly noticed on “Same Story (My Dedication)”, which makes the track the prime song to go out on.

One of the interesting things about the album is the guest appearances on it. Some of which work very well, and some of which make no sense. “Kill Em All” features Beanie Sigel, and a Beanie Sigel-Vinnie Paz collaboration sounds salivating on paper. Beanie Sigel does his thing on the song, as does R.A. the Rugged Man on “Nosebleed”. R.A.’s flow is insane on the cut, and he actually steals the spotlight from Vinnie. In contrast, some of these features do not fit. The Clipse are featured on “Street Wars”, and don’t ever fully establish themselves on the song, as they potentially could. Also, Paul Wall is on “Paul & Paz” and this is dumbfounding to me. Granted, I don’t believe Paul Wall is as bad as some people do, but he really has no place on this song, or album; Wall’s southern trademark flow and slang (He used Boppers on this song, Boppers!) is out of place on the instrumental and ruins the song. With 22 tracks on the album, there is a number of filler songs that help deter the project from picking up momentum. Whether it be pedestrian beats or suspect features, one is lead to believe that a more concise track list would do the album some good.

This isn’t a Jedi Mind Tricks album. It seems as though Vinnie experimented a bit on this LP, and none of it really worked. There are shining moments on the album that have fans nearly breaking their neck; but others that have them pressing the skip button. If Vinnie would have trimmed the fat on this album, it would have been much better. There is enough quality material for it to stand on 13 to 14 tracks.  Still though, it’s worth a listen. Not many people come as hard as Vinnie nowadays.

7.0/10

Beautiful Love

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Righteous Kill

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Same Story (My Dedication)

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