Not "The Blow Up"

The original Roc Nation signee (who's now amazingly flanked by Jay Electronica and ... Will Smith's daughter) dropped his Friday Night Lights mixtape this last week, discontinuing his The Come Up/The Warm Up/The Blow Up potential mixtape trilogy. [I was originally going to put "The" then all the different words of those three tape titles slashed together and then "Up", but I got grossed out as I was typing it.] Oh well. The music's still killer. Cole's flow may be somewhat formulaic and his subject matter falls back on old rap cliches, but his style is all his own, his lyrics are always on-point and rewindable, and his beat are ear-catching. He's one of my favorite artists out and I, along with everyone else, am crazy looking forward to his proper debut under Jigga's tutelage.

J. Cole - Friday Night Lights

Tracklisting:
1. Friday Night Lights
2. Too Deep for the Intro
3. Before I'm Gone
4. Back to the Topic
5. You Got It (feat. Wale)
6. Villematic (Devil in a New Dress Freestyle)
7. Enchanted (feat. Omen)
8. Blow Up
9. Higher
10. In the Morning (feat. Drake)
11. 2Face
12. The Autograph
13. Best Friend
14. Cost Me a Lot
15. Premeditated Murder
16. Home for the Holidays
17. Love Me Not
18. See World
19. Farewell
20. Looking for Trouble [Kanye West feat. Pusha T, Big Sean, CyHi Da Prynce, & J. Cole)

... and Free Enes.

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Vizzy Vizzy Vizzy Vizzy

I root for XV. The guy makes really, really good music 85% of the time. Great stuff. And his newest effort even ups the ante as he only has one major miss in the catastrophic "Gettin' Busy". Everything else is great. Even though it never made it onto wax, I did love the fact that he gave my dude brandUn DeShay a winning verse on his "Bruce Lee" contest joint. I've been checking for XV's stuff ever since, even though he had a day-and-a-half squabble with Charles Hamilton. But then again, who hasn't? Vizzy has quite a line-up with him on this one with guest features from Talib Kweli, Mike Posner, Killer Mike, Colin Munroe, GLC, and more plus the production of Seven, Omen, and Woody. That's on some other kind of indie monstrous.

XV - Vizzy Zone

Tracklisting:
1. Theme To Vizzy Zone
2. The Flying V
3. Tunnel Vision
4. Gettin' Bizzy
5. We Zonin'
6. Reset Button (feat. Talib Kweli)
7. Nevermind
8. She Go, I Go (feat. Chiddy Bang)
9. Falling Awake
10. Mirror's Edge (feat. Mike Posner)
11. Vizzy Zone (feat. KiD CuDi)
12. Passport
13. Isn't It Awesome
14. May The Force Be With You (feat. Killer Mike & Mac Miller)
15. Familiar
16. Best Is Yet To Come (feat. Colin Munroe)
17. Ending Credits (Interlude)
18. Talk My S***
19. Mirror's Edge (Remix feat. Bun B, GLC, & Mike Posner)

... and do the John Wall.

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