YOUTH - Tinie Tempah (ALBUM REVIEW)

I have no idea why I decided to review this. Tinie Tempah is a popular rapper from the UK that just fascinates me. Not because he's GOOD or anything, quite frankly the opposite. He makes so many odd and downright stupid choices, I can't help but listen to his music. Looking at the features for this album, it was looking up as well. Tinashe is my bae, and Jess Glynne & Zara Larsson are my girls. There was potential here, and with a title like "YOUTH" where Tinie is going to be talking about his childhood and come up, maybe he would get introspective in this shit as well! So, after experiencing the deep blissful bangers on the fantastic album "DAMN." by Kendrick Lamar, I decided to check this out right after. So, what did Tinie Tempah do on this album?



Well, not much at all. And don't think I'm being clouded by Kendrick either, because later listens of this album only made it get worse and worse. 1st listen was bad, but in the end I gave it the benefit of the doubt because of "well, maybe I'm just sleep deprived. Maybe I'm too clouded by Kendrick right now". The 2nd listen was worse, and the 3rd listen was so bad I knew I needed to review this. Now after listening to this, I'm not sure WHY I expected Tinie to say anything worth of interest, because he's never done that. I haven't dug into his debut albums, but all his singles and songs I've heard are all the exact same: talking about his come up, how many hits he has now, and just your standard brag rap. I'm totally fine with brag rap if it's done well (hell, Classified's self titled album from 2014 had a bunch of tracks where he's just bragging, and those were the best tracks on that great album.), but it just isn't here. For a bit of a taster, here's a list of wack lines he spat throughout this project.

WACK LINES

"Yeah, I'm the shit, yo, word to my bowels" - Not For The Radio
"Yeah, black boys gettin' white paper" - Lightwork
"I'm flickin' on my Periscope, like hi, hater" - Lightwork
"You're the main number in my phone bill" - Chasing Flies
"When I pop, pop, pop in your dungarees" - Mamacita
"Take you out for dinner, you say feelings is your recipe" - Cameras
"A* student, how you turn into the baddest B?" - Cameras
"I've got makeup on my dick" - Holy Moly
"You're alive, so why you dead?" - Holy Moly
"I know young Gs is gon' FaceTime if they wil' out like Soulja Boy" - Holy Moly
"Tell J.K. that I'm still rollin'" - Girls Like
"I could make a honey give away her last Rolo" - Girls Like
"Lord have mercy on these fuckboys" - Something Special
"I might move to North Korea because my career is headed north" - Shadows


He's not really digging into anything interesting here. But not only that, he fuckin tricks you. He gets these hooks that set up a a topic that could be interesting (Not For The Radio, Text From Your Ex, Cameras, etc.) just to have Tinie Tempah rap his standard bullshit. The title "YOUTH" is also misleading. There really isn't any song here that talks about his youth at all. The closest you get are a bunch of love songs where he acts stupid and naive enough where he could come off as a teenager, but it's never specified whether in the said stories he's 18 or 28. These songs are probably the best too, with "Not Letting Go" ft Jess Glynne, and "Mamacita" ft Wizkid both having strong hooks and fun as hell beats to compensate for Tinie Tempah's lackluster verses (barring the former mentioned Not Letting Go, he actually spits on that one) and make songs that you can put in rotation and jam out to, but not really analyze. But the rest of these range from incredibly basic to downright obnoxious. The incredibly obnoxious "Lightwork", the hard hitting brag rap "Holy Moly" that just comes off as insufferable, Tinie just struggles on this album lyric and bar wise, and the shining example is the track with MNEK "Not For The Radio"

Now, with a title like "Not For The Radio", you'd think it would follow that topic, right? Well for the hook, it does. Talking about how this song probably won't be played on the radio, so instead he'll make it the "realest shit he ever wrote" so people can remember it THAT way. Very obnoxious sure, but he isn't wrong. To Pimp A Butterfly will be remembered in 10 years, Illuminate by Shawn Mendes won't. And to his credit, MNEK sounds genuine and pretty great on this hook, he sets up the verses perfectly! But then the verses come in, with Tinie Tempah flowing over standard upbeat hip hip production and rapping his same old bullshit. The hook says "They might not play this on the radio", but the verses SCREAM "Please play this on the radio". The contradiction is fucking mental to me.

And the beats aren't giving me much to work with either. Again, "Not Letting Go" and "Mamacita" sound great, very light and bouncy summer jams. But the rest of this is not bad, it's AWFUL. "Text From Your Ex" ruins a solid hook from Tinashe by including horrible verses with ugly bass and awkward percussion, you have the this tribal sounding beat from Lightwork that molds itself into some 8-bit techno DJ Mustard disaster, "Girls Like" ruins a solid hook from Zara Larsson with an absolutely lifeless synth melody and equally lifeless set of claps and percussion. There's just nothing to offer here. When you listen to this album, you quickly realize the reason that there's a feature on almost every single track is because the beats are so fucking boring. The sleep inducing synth and stupid scream sample on "Shadows" with Bipolar fucking Sunshine of all people, the garbage track with Kid Ink where he brings a shitty Mustard sounding beat he's currently plagued his career with, the list goes on.


There is no reason to listen to this album. The lyrics aren't deep, they aren't interesting, and they aren't fun. The beats aren't atmospheric, they aren't interesting, and they aren't fun. Tinie uses the same 2 equally boring flows, and the content overall has no variations to it at ALL. Yeah, I didn't like this at all, the U.K can keep this fucker.

OVERALL: 3/10

BEST: Not Letting Go ft Jess Glynne, Mamacita ft Wizkid

WORST: Lightwork, Not For The Radio ft MNEK, Holy Moly