First Impressions: J. Cole’s 4 Your Eyez Only

4 Your Eyes Only album cover

J. Cole has done it again. I think this one is going to be another platinum with no features.

Favourite tracks

  • Immortal – Hard hitting track about our mortality. Favourite lines:
    Nowadays crime pays like a part time job
    And the drought got me prayin’ for a car time vibe
  • Deja Vu – That “Exchange” beat is fantastic and works really well .
  • Change – Continuing the theme of mortality and death. I love the Ari Lennox bits in the bridge.
  • 4 Your Eyez Only – A nine minute, 4 verse monster with a theme akin to 2Pac’s Letter 2 My Unborn and Words 2 My First Born. This one almost made me cry.

She’s Mine (both Pt. 1 & 2) both get a shout out as well. Deeply personal tracks about his wife and daughter.

Conclusions

If you are looking at the track list right now and comparing it to my favourite lists up there, it is basically the entire album. If you are a hip-hop head, this is probably Christmas coming early.

Yeah, I really like this album. I’m on my third listen as I type this.

2016 has been a really good year for music, damn.

Firewatch and SUPERHOT: A Tale of Two Games

This past weekend I played two games: Firewatch and SUPERHOT. This post is not intended to be a review of the two games but a look at the polar differences between the two and why one gets a lot of flack for its perceived lack of content and why the other is praised for its mechanical purity.

Now you might ask, “Sadiq, why does this matter? These are two entirely separate games in two entirely different genres!”. To that I answer:

  1. Humour me, I need to flex my writing muscles.
  2. Do the words “value proposition” sound important to you? If so, you are in for a treat.
  3. The voices in my head say interesting things sometimes and I would like to write this down.

Let us jump in shall we?

Continue reading “Firewatch and SUPERHOT: A Tale of Two Games”