Why I Didn't Like Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial

When I released my review of Tyler, The Creator's IGOR on Instagram, people wanted my head on a stick! So, I published a full review to simply explain myself. And what seems to be my 2nd most controversial review is my review of Roddy Ricch's Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial. With the post came one comment from my wonderful cousin but no other criticism. That really surprised me and it surprises me more after the backlash from the IGOR review. No one actually asked me to give my entire reasoning for disliking Roddy Ricch's album but I feel like explaining myself. Multiple people I know said that this project was one of the best albums of 2019, and it was very successful overall. Which I really don't understand if I'm being totally honest.

A note that I made about 9/15 of the songs is that they had a lot of filler in them. Throughout this project, Roddy Ricch managed to add filler into multiple songs in many different ways. There are times where he takes pauses in between bars, there are songs with awful structure for extra runtime, there are stupid and obnoxious sound effects at random times and there are many filler lyrics that either don't rhyme with anything, are repetitive or simply useless and sound ridiculous. The 9th track Boom Boom Boom managed to commit three of these sins. In the chorus of that song every time he says a lyric, he says "hmm" right after. And that just adds runtime and gets super annoying after hearing over and over again. Not to mention that in Boom Boom Boom, Roddy Ricch used "boom" and "vroom" as a rhyme and yet somehow made the chorus not rhyme. In the first verse of Perfect Time, one of the lyrics is, "especially when these lil' niggas see me as reputable," and that lyric rhymes with nothing. It's insane how awful it sounds when you have to hear that lyric. In the track High Fashion, the two verses are only eight bars long, and yet there's a chorus and post-chorus that play three times. 1:47 out of this 3:41 song is just the chorus. And that is not including the bridge, which is a repetition of the chorus nor the 50 seconds that is just instrumental. It doesn't stop there because the chorus also features the bar "ahh, woah," which is the most filler sound/bar he could've added. If I'm being honest, I should've been even harsher with my review of High Fashion. There are many more examples of filler being used on this project but I only want to mention some.

Something about Roddy Ricch that makes him stand out is how much he likes to change his voice and attempt to sound different. Whether or not he does this to try to change the vibe or feeling of the song or if he wants to show more versatility, it is impressive. But there are moments where his delivery is really odd. Going back to Perfect Time, in just the chorus alone he changes his voice in three different ways. In the first 2 bars he sounds very ill, then in bars 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 he kind of sounds like Drake, and then in the 5th bar he really shows off his actual singing. Now this concept tells me that Roddy Ricch does have a lot of potential because I believe that an artist's versatility can play a major role in their level of respect as well as skill. But the change in tone throughout this chorus breaks it's flow and makes it harder to enjoy. The transition from bar 5 to bar 6 genuinely feels sad. Roddy Ricch goes from really high energy to very low energy. Aside from Perfect Time, an issue I noticed throughout the album was his poor delivery. Something that worries me is that I feel like Roddy Ricch might be trying to sound more like other influential rappers in his music when he doesn't need to. Although he changes his voice frequently, in songs like Moonwalkin and Prayers to the Trap God, Roddy Ricch speaks with an overly high-pitched voice. But in most of his discography we see that his voice doesn't really sound like that. He sounds like an imitation of Lil Uzi Vert or Young Thug, which is why I worry that he may be forcing it because it doesn't sound good at all when he does it.

I've discussed a lot of my issues so far, so let me just name a few minor details. Roddy Ricch is very well-known for his use of sound effects, such as his famous "eeh-err," but I would be lying if I said that I didn't hate how much he uses dumb sounds like that. I also mentioned that Roddy Ricch had some filler lyrics in his songs, which is really an understatement. I can't think of anything more embarrassing than the very first lyric of your song not rhyming with anything, and Moonwalkin starts with the lyric, "say she wanna fuck another bitch, I made it happen," which literally does not rhyme with anything else in the chorus. Although I've already ripped into High Fashion like crazy, there is still more to say. Looking back, I don't know how I gave this one a 5/10 because it's so terrible. The chorus of that song has the lyric, "I put some ice on you 'cause you got a cold heart," which is not only already a bad lyric but it doesn't rhyme with anything else in the chorus!

In conclusion, there are positive parts of this album. The intro, despite having some bad rhymes, was pretty enjoyable. Big Stepper, God's Eyes and Roll Dice are solid tracks. And War Baby was a very beautiful conclusion to the album. But there is just too much bad to say about it overall. I don't know anything about Roddy Ricch as a person but I'm sure he's proud of what he has achieved, and like I said about Tyler, The Creator, I don't believe he deserves to have that taken away. You can listen to whatever you want, these are my thoughts based on my preferences.

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