Ok so R. Kelly Left and Locksmith are The Frontline, two salty yet hungry rappers from Richmond (aka the Land Of Coach Carter) who with the help of E-A-Ski have been making some very romantic music. They’ve had some 12″s floating around and I’d seen them around but I passed them up each time. I didn’t really know anything about these dudes and didn’t feel like chancing it. Then their song with E-A-Ski, “What Is It”, started getting some play. It’s a cool song but I still didn’t cop their shit. Then I heard that Ross Hogg and B-Cause mix with some of their other songs on it and decided it was time to man up. After hearing their album I think they went a little soft on the singles. Don’t get me wrong the singles are cool but fuck they got some bangers that I would have prefered to hear loud as shit in the club. They’ve also got a couple guests on this shit such as E-A-Ski, Balance, and San Quinn. I’ve got some plans for a post about Balance in the future too.

(image jacked from here)

One of the songs that goes hard as fuck is “Playin’ With Fire” the beat has some dark tones to it but fuck man the drums on this shit don’t fuck around. It’s some fucking high school pep ralley stomping on the fucking bleachers clapping till your hands hurt screaming “we will rock you!” Frontline rapping about how you shouldn’t try fucking with them cause they don’t think you understand what you’re fucking with. They got this other cut, “I Got…” featuring San Quinn that also rocks the blownout handclaps with this casio guitar dropping in over the beat. I’m usually suspect of some sythasized guitars but they work it right dropping rhymes about chopping shit up with Willie Brown and how the bay ain’t on some punk shit. A number of the beats rock some guitar for a little bit of that harder edge to them. They even got this song Recognize that rocks that Ironman riff. It’s hard but I’ve been burnt out on Trick Daddy’s “Let’s Go” to really be all that impressed by it although it does leave the song open for flipping some cutesy mixes.

Well shit I just noticed something, I started writing this post then stopped and started reading the liner notes of this album. Turns out the 12″s that they released were all produced by E-A-ski while all the other tracks on the album are produced by Left. I’m thinking since E-A-Ski and CMT were the executive producers on this shit then that explains why they went with the singles they did. I like E-A-Ski but I think Left is bringing some harder shit on the beats. E-A-Ski has more shit going on in his beats while Left’s beats tend to be more stripped down but Left cranks out some bangers. I don’t know how long Left has been making beats but you give this dude some more experience and I think he’ll be dropping some serious heat.

Gangsta
I Got…. featuring San Quinn
Playin’ With Fire

buy the album here