Polo G’s third studio album feels unfinished, unsatisfactory and disappointing to those already frustrated with The GOAT.
The young Chicago rapper at the young age of 22, only started making music in 2019. Due to his massive rise in popularity with his smash hit “Pop Out” his rise to fame was rapid, but detrimental to his growth as a rapper. What started out as a potential filled first project in Die a Legend, Polo G went to a more commercial and easy sound to recreate with his second project, The GOAT, that transferred over to this new project, Hall of Fame.
With tracks like “So Real”, “Broken Guitars”, “Losses” and “RAPSTAR”, Polo G went to his safe zone of his subpar singing that only furthered disappointment in those fans that wanted to hear more energy on tracks, which was only truly present on roughly a third of the album.
The elephant in the room of “unfinished” on this seemingly rushed sounding project was Lil Durk’s feature on debatably the best song on the project. “No Return” shows Polo G with the first verse, Kid Laroi on the hook and then Durk on the 2nd verse. Now while Polo G and Laroi did wonderful and truly added to the song with the uncommonly good beat thanks to Taz Taylor (most well known for “Ransom” by Lil Tecca), Lil Durk’s mixing seems oddly messy and rough. It sounds at some points very well mixed and fits in with the volume of the voice of Polo G and Laroi, but sometimes sounds way too quiet at the same time.
The other highlight song, which has seen the most praise of all the songs so far, being “Bloody Canvas” shows the best emotion, storytelling, and energy all mixed together. But what makes it even better is that the song isn’t forced to 2 and a half minutes of a runtime, it’s allowed freedom with 4 minutes for Polo G to convey a strong story.
All in all, Polo G needs to cut a lot of songs to make room for longer songs that can convey more of what he’s good at, and not forcing a cash grab that he knows he can put out. The average song length on this album was dropped significantly compared to the average length of 2:56 on his first two projects, which were both shorter projects. Also with those projects they have less songs which seemingly shows the best of Polo G. His next album is going to need to improve heavily and return to his real strengths, not an album for sales.
5 / 10
Best tracks: “Bloody Canvas”, “No Return”, “Boom”, “GANG GANG”
Written by Joey Valcarcel
Mic Cheque 