REASON: Porches Album Download Leak MP3 ZIP Files

The California rapper Reason is a talented and versatile vocalist known for his impressionistic, occasionally stilted writing style. Many wonder if he has what it takes to become Top Dawg Entertainment’s (TDE) next big star.

Reason seems to have inherited a bone-deep exhaustion from his former TDE labelmate Kendrick Lamar. Although Lamar’s music often touched on subjects like bright-eyed boys lapsing into sullen machismo and the insidious catch-22s Black men in American cities face, Reason does not provide the same context in his second album, Porches. Instead, he creates an impressionistic patchwork of familiar themes and settings. While this approach offers a more diaristic urgency, it also dulls the record’s emotional reveals due to the abridged framework.

Porches’ most impactful monologues are clustered together, concentrating their idiosyncrasies. The song “Call Me!” is a compelling, kinetic meditation on envy with an accomplished vocal performance despite a clunky exposition. An interlude links the theme to “Gang Shit!” which volleys between first- and second-person perspectives to dramatize the divergence of childhood peers. While the immediacy of these tracks is reminiscent of Lamar’s proven tactics, Reason is overreliant on jump-cuts, making it seem like you’re listening in on a phone conversation halfway through.

Although the dense songwriting rewards repeat listens, Porches is clouded by atmospheric window-dressing, such as raspy admonishments from neighborhood elders, voicemails from hectoring girlfriends, and disputes over territory and perceived slights. These tropes would be haphazard if they weren’t the sort that appeared on Kendrick and YG albums a decade ago, not to mention Xzibit and Jayo Felony albums 15 years before that. Even the album’s overarching concept, which uses the front porch as a portal between the streets and interior life, feels like a stilted take on “Swimming Pools” and “Money Trees.” It’s gesturing at something it’s not, suggesting discomfort with the record’s modest competence.

The early standout on the album is “A Broken Winter Break!,” a gnarled slice of West Coast funk that wouldn’t be out of place on a Schoolboy Q or ICECOLDBISHOP project. “Send You 2 the Afterlife!” is another highlight, a fluid drive-by narrative that benefits from fantastic production and vocal engineering. From there, the album shifts to a half-hour of somber keys and treacly chipmunk soul, songs burdened with labored similes and finger-wagging platitudes befitting a LinkedIn post.

Porches showcase Reason’s nimble delivery across a breadth of knotty, lopsided rhyme patterns, but rather than showcase his versatility, the survey course renders him chameleonic. It’s worth revisiting There You Have It, the 2017 mixtape that attracted TDE’s interest in the first place. Although assembled with YouTube-sourced beats, it’s deeply felt, if not profound. The label’s resources might have secured producer placements and sharpened Reason’s vision.

TRACKLIST

  1. Faded Off Poor N Riches (feat. London Money)
  2. Caucasian Estates
  3. At It Again
  4. A Broken Winter Break (feat. SiR & Kiilynn)
  5. You Betta (Jesus Take The Wheel)
  6. Send You To The Afterlife
  7. Call Me (feat. Junii)
  8. Gang S**t
  9. FTN (feat. Baby Tate)
  10. Gina (August Alsina)
  11. Too Much (Melly Mel)
  12. Bussin (WB Pt. 2) [feat. Ray Vaughn]
  13. Rich Mirages
  14. I Don’t Trust You (feat. Doechii & Junii)
  15. Family First (feat. Kalan.FrFr & Zacari)
  16. Porch Steps (feat. Dirty Dell & Junii)
  17. Poster Child

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It’s important to note that there is a Kendrick-shaped hole in the TDE lineup. Still, on Porches, Reason raps like the daylight’s behind him, falling prey to the narrative inversion that plagues so many of J. Cole’s disciples, which is the supposition that a label’s investment ensures artistic triumph. A record deal is undoubtedly a pivotal event, but to the audience, it’s an offscreen prelude. The action belongs between the opening and closing credits.