GOD GOLDIN FORCES LISTENERS TO HONOR NEW BARS & CLASSIC BEATS ON “PAY HOMAGE 2” MIXTAPE

THERE was a time when mixtapes mattered. Back in the height of DJ Clue, DJ Kay Slay, DJ Drama’s Gansta Grillz, mixtapes could break an artist in ways that are extinct today. HBCU Homecoming weekends were lined with vendors selling all the top mixtapes. There was an actual event called “The Mixtape Awards” (RIP Justo) and it caused real beef among DJs. It was a glorious time called the late ’90s/early 2000s.

Today, you may get a mixtape but it’s not the same essence – and definitely not the same impact. Mostly what you get are full albums that artists call mixtapes, for some distribution reason or another (Chance the rapper is a good example of this newer practice). But every once in awhile, an artist brings it back to the glory days. Ever so often, an artist releases a true mixtape, new rhymes over classic beats (that will never get cleared by a major label) and they give the mixtape away (true mixtapes are free people), and true hip-hop heads will get that classic feel all over again.

God Goldin is one of those artists, and “Pay Homage 2” is one of those mixtapes. From the opening lines over HOV’s classic “Where I’m From,” Goldin puts you on notice, “Don’t call me the greatest rapper of all-time/ nah/I’m the greatest rapper beyond time.”

Goldin delivers fresh bars over classic beats from Nas’s “Affirmative Action” to Prodigy’s “Keep it Thoro.” He brings highly intelligent – knowledge dropping bars – over pure classic beats, and he makes each track his own. Some tracks are just straight bars like “Boom T’Challa’s Burden Freestyle,” but on other tracks, like the “Affirmative Action Freestyle,’ Godlin transforms into a true storyteller.

He reps NYC and Richmond heavy. “Welcome to Richmond” is a powerful account of life in Richmond “Go to Richmond City Schools and they devastating/But go to the County ones and they all amazing,” is an accurate and jarring account coming from the high school educator and popular basketball coach.

Goldin finishes the mixtape with his own rendition of Nas’s “God is Like.” It’s a fitting bookend to the 8 track package. The God makes no bones about it, he’s confident in his wordplay. He throws down the gauntlet – and in the words of the QB legend, challenges others to “Pick their bars up.” I stop ranking tapes and albums a long time ago, but I highly recommend this one. In the past, I’ve lower a review of a tape that used classic beats. My reasoning was that the classic song would, more than likely, always be better the new artists using the beat. Somehow, I don’t feel that way about Pay Homage 2. Goldin has made every track his own and that is a true credit to his skill and wordplay. #WESEEIT