ALBUM REVIEW: Jay IDK – The Empty Bank
Originally posted on HipHopDX 9/29/2016
Rating: 3.8/5
For Maryland MC Jay IDK, life has been on an upward incline since his 2015 album SubTRAP. The success of his last album has put him on a trajectory to gain traction outside of PG County and the DMV. Jay opens up on what his newfound progress comes with and how to balance the expectations of getting money with his latest album The Empty Bank.
The cover art, depicting Ben Franklin with a noose around his neck as he sits on a rented luxury car, serves as the perfect metaphor for the album. Jay gets right into the heart of the album’s subject material with the Kain Carter and Masego-assisted “Mr. Mills” to kick off The Empty Bank. The song starts with an instructional chant of, “Sex, Drugs, Money” as Jay IDK raps, “I guess I figured it out; money ain’t shit. I guess I figured it out; money is dick/a bitch will tell you your shit is good if your money long even if your dick is shorter than Gary Coleman”. As Mr. Mills continues to wax poetic with lines such as, “I’m spending everything I got on everything I don’t need” and “My friends see they say ‘sheesh he got lots of cheese’ it’s probably from the smiles they see on my IG but them smiles ain’t really me” he’s interrupted by a bill collector attempting to collect on his $30,000 studio bill.
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