Marcel Friday

ALBUM REVIEW: Chinx – Legends Never Die

Originally posted on HipHopDX 9/27/2016
Rating: 2.7/5

Lionel Pickens, or Chinx as was best known by, became another MC taken away due to gun violence in May 2015 — adding to that long list of rappers whose clock was punched much too soon, much like his Rockaway Riot Squad brethren Stack Bundles, who was murdered in June 2007. His follow-up to last year’s impressive Welcome to JFK, Legends Never Die is the second album to be released since Chinx’s still unsolved murder. With the exception of the first Rockaway Riot Squad track since Stack’s murder in 2007, “All Good,” all of the tracks were recorded prior to Chinx passing.

Legends Never Die isn’t reinventing the wheel, nor is it meant to. The subject material is insubstantial and the production (scored predominately by Blickie Blaze with sporadic offerings from Harry Fraud and Lee on the Beat) is decent yet redundant. The LP opens up with the upbeat, smooth and flowing pop single “Like This,” featuring Chrisette Michele and Chinx’s mentee Meet Sims. From jump, the French Montana influence is noticeable not only in the way Chinx puts his bars together but tonally and in his vocal afflictions as well. “Like This” doesn’t stray away from the typical Top 40 single we’ve been beat over the head with as Chinx raps about things the woman currently worthy of his attention isn’t accustomed to as the chorus chants, “She ain’t never rolled with a nigga like this, she ain’t never smoked with a nigga like this, she ain’t never rolled with her hair pulled back in a drop top whip with a nigga like this.”