This is one mad joint right here. This is the Conway I have been waiting to get for a while now. ‘From King to A GOD‘ is arguably the best Conway project and the best our of Griselda since Benny’s ‘Plugs’ joint. Now, let’s be clear, this is NOT a Shady Records release, this is a Griselda Records / Drumworks release so I don’t want to hear any noise about that!!!
The production for me is what has totally changed the Conway release. Instead of getting these generic, melodic, easily digested, minimal joints from Daringer, Alchemist, Big Ghost LTD and the like (which for me is a little over-saturated right now) we get a diverse, hard hitting joint featuring a variety of beats from Hit Boy, Eric Sermon, Beat Butcha, Havoc and others. While each producer still tailors the track to suit the grimey, haunting street poetry of the Buffalo emcee, it still sits well outside the standard ‘in-house’ production that Daringer generally provides.
With solid production from start to finish, it allows Conway to do what he does best. Deliver epic street tales, cleverly crafted rhyme schemes and paint vivid lyrical pictures. As a lyricist, Conway is top tier and each track on the album delivers a top shelf performance. The features are also as equally brilliant.
Method Man may be the only emcee to outshine Conway on this project, with his multi-syllable rhyme schemes on ‘Lemon’ just reminding the world that Meth is one of the illest spitters of all time. ‘Juvenile Hell‘ features Flee Lord, Havoc and Lloyd Banks and may just be the standout track of the album. Each spitter brings a SICK sixteen and it’s great to really hear Banks going hard again.
Having added a few tracks most recently before finally releasing this joint (which allowed some epic NBA playoff quotables!), along with the timely and well placed monologues from the late DJ Shay who was a mentor (and producer) for the Griselda crew – really fleshes this out to be a mature and complete offering. Outside of the ‘required’ Armani Caesar feature (as Griselda’s femcee) there are very few moments that are out of place.
This album has been in constant rotation over the past few days to get a proper feel for the album, and my review hasn’t changed much. This is a fantastic hip hop release, a well received solo joint that will have people rethinking their Albums of the Year lists. It won’t leapfrog some of my other favourite joints from 2020 such as the Recognize Ali releases, Jamo Gang and others, but it deserves to be in the discussion.
Bangers: Juvenile Hell, Fear of God, Spurs 3, Jesus Khrysis, Lemon.
Score: 9 / 10. Pretty damn close to perfect. The ‘Anza‘ feature felt out of place and WAAAAAAY too Cardi B for me, but the rest of the album (bar the very odd occasion where Conway’s laid back flow works against him like on Lemon) this is an epic joint and will feature heavily in the end of year awards.
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