Tru-Era

Royce Da 5’9”
Bar Exam 3 (Mixtape) – 5/5 STARS

“The Most Interesting Man in the World”. This is what Royce calls himself on his newest project. And he does his best living up to his own hype. Bar Exam 3 starts off with a high energy flow and a really fun rhyming scheme. He takes full advantage of the production in most the 29 tracks. Royce does not simply keep one flow throughout each song. He creatively chops up verses and hooks which makes for each listen to be as fresh as the one before it. His ability to break down his own words and create powerful percussion like flow is interesting to say the least.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in Bar Exam 3 is Royce’s decision to be more comical than usual. You quickly find yourself cringing from ultra vivid descriptions of violence to laughing out loud at his ridiculous punchlines and humorous takes on skinny jeans and the club scene. Including the intro and outro, there is 29 tracks total. You’d expect for there to me more than a few weaker songs to appear. However this is not the case. Royce nearly hits every song out the park, treating this mixtape like a premier LP. Victim to a couple of months of delays, Bar Exam 3 is quickly forgiven for its late arrival.

Features from the usual suspect of characters make their appearance. But Royce makes a good decision in not having these features overshadow his own performance. You get just enough Slaughterhouse and Kid Vicious to satisfy your taste. All in all, this is yet another great entry in Royces career. His lyrics are hard hitting as ever, the humor does a great job at breaking up the often serious Royce speak, and his production is finally catching up with him.

Proof of his skills as an MC may be in the last song where he kills Chocolate Rain. That’s right; Royce Da 5’9” kills the Chocolate Rain beat.

-State Spector