No, scratch that. His voice isn't cool; it sucks.
So what does he do? Well, on Suffering From Success, he assembles an all-star crew of mostly infuriatingly bad rappers - the kind of rappers who almost make me embarrassed to say I listen to hip-hop. What you get is exactly what you'd expect. A lot of generic beats and a lot of deep-voiced rappers yelling about wealth, drugs, designer brands and, most frequently, haters and niggas and hatin-ass niggas. They also get romantic once in a while and give (usually unflattering) shout-outs to their bitch and hoes.
Ugh.
Production-wise, the record is mostly banal and devoid of anything even slightly creative. The first half follows the same tired formula for every shitty southern rap track: big ringing synths, loads of autotune, clickedy-clack snare and heavy, slow-to-mid tempo bass. The second half does have its cool moments, like the coll reggae vibe of "Give it All to Me" and the psychedelic minimalism of "Hell's Kitchen," but performers like Nicki Minaj can't quite step up to the beat.
Lyrically, at its best moments, the performers might not make you cringe. Khaled and Rick Ross yell a lot, Lil Wayne drops some weak metaphors on "No Motive," and on "I'm Still," Chris Browns croons, "Still gon'a do my thing" - which, as we all know, is assaulting other R&B singers.
In more than a few ways, the album seems to embody everything that's wrong with modern hip-hop: the pointless misogyny, the banal production, the look-at-my-I'm-rich-bitch idealism. That's not a problem is you only want to turn up the volume, turn down your brain and get the trunk rattling for an hour or so. But if you're someone who likes to, ya know, think while you listen to music, then it's just disgustingly bad. DJ Khaled isn't the one Suffering From Success - we are. We're suffering from too many successful rappers who don't have any story worth telling or music worth creating.
Grade: D-
