IN BANK WE TRUST X BANKROLL FRESH

And we are back with our fifteenth official review! As promised, the below are our metrics for our reviews. To see our previous review of MY TURN X LIL BABY, click here.

FEEL- What type of feelings does the music evoke? What does it make you want to do?

LYRICS- Are there bars?

PRODUCTION- Does the artist ride the beats? Does their cadence match the production? Does the production fit well with the project?

OVERALL- How many tracks do we like compared to the number of tracks on the project?

Feel free to use the above for your own reference as you go through the music and let us know what you think! 

IN BANK WE TRUST X BANKROLL FRESH

Release Date: 3.4.2020

Number of Tracks: 12

Duration: 38 mins

Favorite Track: Mind, Body, & Soul, Extra

This is going to be bit tough for us, as it is our first posthumous album review. Please bear with us as we attempt to navigate another emotional review, while trying to keep it as objective as possible.

The year was 2015, and our daily scroll of new music on Datpiff lead us to a mixtape entitled, Life of a Hotboy 2: Real Trapper. This was our first exposure to the rapper known as Bankroll Fresh. The album cover, was a visual representation to us as to how we would go out, were we ever to be fired from our full time jobs.

Thus, we became instant fans of the aggressive nature of Bankroll and his ensuing projects, with many songs from that 2015 tape still in today’s rotation. As for me personally, I remember walking out of my job at South DeKalb Mall, to find Bankroll and B.O.B themselves jumping up and down on top of a car shooting the music video for their song, “Candler Road Shit.” With solid Atlanta rap connections like TI, Travis Porter, and Zaytoven, Bankroll Fresh was primed for his run as the one who had next out of the city.

This run was tragically cut short when he was gunned down outside of a studio in Atlanta on March 4^th, 2016.

Through the music videos, the mixtapes, and the videos of Bankroll Fresh’s run, The Oracle was a huge fan, and this came as a staggering blow for the Atlanta rap music scene. Exactly four years later the posthumous album has finally been released, and we only wish that Bankroll could have been here to see it.

And with that, we will begin our review of In Bank We Trust.

Feel

Bankroll is what I would call a hot and cold rapper, meaning when the track is hot it absolutely SLAPS, but when it is not it is very skip worthy. This has been evident across all of his projects, and In Bank We Trust is no exception to Bankroll Fresh’s style. That said, the feel of the album is very much surreal. It feels like the rapper is still with us, and it can be difficult to play the tape all the way through without a rush of emotion.

Lyrics

The Atlanta rapper is from the hood and makes music for the hood, so his lyrics are not meant to be broken down bar by bar. That does not mean that the project is devoid of bars however, as Fresh starts the intro with straight heat, as highlighted below:

I want the fortune, motherfuck the fame
I want the Bentley, motherfuck the Range
God, please forgive me, this shit, I'ma kill it
This shit from my soul, this shit from my spirit
Can't go nowhere if you ain't got no vision
Can't go nowhere if you don't know the distance

-       Bankroll Fresh, Mind, Body, & Soul

Production

In Bank We Trust provides a classic Atlanta rapper beat selection, with the only real experimental track being Confessions. Other than that, the first two tracks, Mind, Body, & Soul and Extra are the only real standouts in this department. So while the production is not a strength of the album, it definitely does do anything to hold it back either.

Overall

Bankroll Fresh makes his album debut in a posthumous fashion, as a result of his untimely murder.  The tragedy left the city in disbelief, however In Bank We Trust provides a smooth glimpse at what could have been. It is absolutely heart breaking, especially when we are left only to wonder what his career could have looked like today. Because of his hot and cold rapping style, there only two tracks (Mind, Body, & Soul and Extra) that are worthy of The Oracle’s 2020 rotation. However the shift from track one to two is so well done, that these will likely find spins in our all-time rotation. Nevertheless, In Bank We Trust still does well to ease the hearts of those still suffering from the loss of an instant Atlanta rap legend.

3.19.2020 – The Oracle