Rejjie Snow - Baw Baw Black Sheep Review
On Baw Baw Black Sheep, Rejjie Snow displays some decent rapping virtuosity, but a lack of fine-tuning leaves it sounding like a messier early mixtape, lacking the maturity that a sophomore album should have.
Rejjie Snow has been waving the flag for Irish hip-hop for quite a few years now. His breakout EP, 2013’s Rejovich, which showed off Rejjie’s distinctively raspy yet smooth voice over some classically jazzy hip-hop beats, was followed up by a series of singles before his debut album Dear Annie was released in 2018, to a rather lukewarm reception. It’s become rather clear over his now eight-year career that Rejjie Snow is more than capable of dropping a great single, but really struggles to get to grips with a longer project. Baw Baw Black Sheep, this latest release, is a testament to that. While his debut really showed promise, with several great tracks but an unfortunately over-indulged track-list, he has not been able to capitalise on the qualities shown to make for a more consistent album here, with a rather messy sounding output here.
Some of the singles for this new album, namely ‘Cookie Chips’ and ‘Disco Pantz’, created a good deal of anticipation for this album, building on the vibey Rejjie Snow palate that we’ve become used to, creating some more mature-sounding mellow hip-hop. ‘Cookie Chips’ features some rather focused lyrics from Rejjie, focusing on his awareness of growing up, and looking nostalgically but critically back at his past. The track also features a smooth, dreamy instrumental, complemented by Cam O’bi’s poppy vocals on the chorus, and an MF DOOM verse — something which almost always works as an automatic positive for a track. ‘Disco Pantz’ is a little more upbeat and danceable, possibly the closest he’s come to a banger since ‘Blakkst Skn’. The unsurprisingly disco-like beat and synths add a rare energy, which Rejjie and Tinashe jump on beautifully for the chorus. The verses are a little moodier, but it still works. My one qualm with this track is that it ends a little prematurely — it could certainly have been built upon to become one of Rejjie Snow’s best tracks.
When we dive into the album, it becomes clear almost immediately that there will be inconsistencies, not just in terms of quality but also aesthetically. The intro, ‘Grateful’, falls rather well in line with what we heard on ‘Cookie Chips’: it’s summery and laid-back, and layered with samples. It’s little to write home about in itself, but at least it makes sense. ‘Obrigado’, the follow-up, however, sounds like an intro to an entirely different album. It’s grander, more hyped-up, and sounds particularly jarring sandwiched between ‘Grateful’ and ‘Cookie Chips’. You wonder here how much time he actually spent on sequencing these tracks, it sounds so unnatural. However, take nothing away from ‘Obrigado’ as a track on itself; it’s exciting and carries a real energy injection. Rejjie’s rapping virtuosity is also shown here with a change of pace from his general comfort zone, but he carries it rather confidently.
‘Mirrors’, the second single released in advance of this album, is also a decent highlight in the track-list, though for me to a lesser extent than ‘Cookie Chips’ and ‘Disco Pantz’. It’s summery, almost tropical-sounding, but then as the trap-like beat comes in for the chorus it feels a little uncomfortable in itself, with a slightly flat vocal performance on this section. However, the pre-chorus and the verses, particularly Rejjie’s second verse, are really strong and have a real warmth to them too. “Relax”, which follows, feels still summery but more in a hazy summer evening way. However, it sounds a little rough around the edges, almost slightly unfinished. This can be heard in some of the repetitive lyrics, the lack of the progression to the instrumental, and a couple of forced-sounding flows through Rejjie’s verses. The lyrics, while making reference to trying to celebrate parts of being black which they are often encouraged to hide, also rather skirt around the topic, with only a couple of more profound bars etched into verses that feel cluttered with quite a few cliches. TJW’s verse at the end of the track is definitely its highlight, as he brings a refreshing flow and a lot more vocal personality to the mix.
We are then taken, via a well-used interlude, to ‘Oreos’, the first particularly jazzy track on the album. It also features one of Rejjie’s most impressive verses on the album, with a smooth but quick flow, but it does also sound like he’s not entirely comfortable delivering it. We hear this jazzy influence again towards the end of the album in the syncopated percussion of “Shooting Star”, but with more of a modernisation of that sound. “Shooting Star” does, however, also include a rather regular issue throughout this album though: really lacklustre vocals from Cam O’Bi on the chorus. He sounds flat, uncomfortable with the pace, and lacking in personality. And this is thrown into almost half of the tracks, with particularly egregious offences being found here on ‘Skip to My Lou’ and, to an extent, ‘Cookie Chips’.
Rejjie Snow, realistically, has a huge amount of potential: his flows are always smooth and varied, he can write some great singles, and he uses a wide variety of influences. Baw Baw Black Sheep, while demonstrating his qualities, also brings to the fore many of Snow’s flaws, leaving this album sounding rather messy and somewhat unfinished — it feels in a way that its release was rushed through by a band of yes men, rather than taking its time to be tweaked into a much more consistent release. In the end, it winds up sounding more like an early mixtape than a sophomore album, lacking some of the creative maturity that the optimists among us may have expected from Rejjie Snow by this point.
