Migos' "Culture III"

Happy June my dudes, I hope all is going well. This week we had a good amount of drops and releases which honestly felt amazing. There were projects dropping from the Maroon 5, Marshmallow, Polo G, producer Pierre Bourne, and finally the spotlight of this week, the Migos with their studio album “Culture III”. When it comes to Migos, their contribution to the trap subgenre of rap entering pop culture is very significant. Their sophomore album, “Culture” broke records and pretty much made trap enter the beginning stages of pop music. Their triple-styled rhymes covered with adlibs and confidence is something that was easy to grab on to and move with. Their big song at the time of release around 2017 was “Bad and Boujee”, and man was it stuck on the billboards for quite a while. You know you made an impression when Donald Glover brings you up at the Grammys. The future of Migos seemed exceptionally bright, but unfortunately time stunted their ability to grow. Their next album after a year was “Culture II”, having it be a very lengthy album with not much more to go on. Their style of rapping at this point became super popular to where many contemporaries tried to mimic and match, making the Migos seem less and less unique. “Culture II” could have been a very enjoyable album as there were some super good songs that came out of it, but unfortunately due to their massive track list and having each song sound very similar to the other, the Migos were being diluted to dangerous levels. So, when coming into the third “Culture”, I asked two questions before listening.

    1. What has Migos done to diversify their sound as rappers. Is there any experimentation or changes in sound or do we have a similar issue to that of “Culture II”?

    2.How do Migos hold up to their modern contemporaries? Do their trap sound stand out from the style of rap music coming out today, or is it something that fails to gain a spotlight?

With that being said, let’s get right into it. The first song, “Avalanche” was a much slower song than anticipated as it rode a smooth sample while showing up some unique flair from all 3 of Migos’s members. The music video also created a smooth, chill environment that pretty much was their way of saying, “I know you missed us, enjoy this one.” I respect the artistic direction of starting it off slower with this song because it added a lot more fascination to what the rest of the project had to offer. Right after this we’re given the song “Having Our Way” featuring Drake and man oh man was I in for a treat. Hands down, this is my favorite song of the album and it’s mainly because of Drake. His flow and lyrics on this song were to catchy, and I loved hearing his moody tone in this as it took up most of the length of the song. The other Migos share the rest of the song with each other equally as each delivers a verse, and this is something that I noticed now more than before. Each member has a dedicated portion of the song to give their verse and sound, and in songs like “Straighenin”, you can definitely see it. This album definitely made me look more into the third and sometimes hidden member, Takeoff. While he did have a solo project that gave him more attention, I still felt like he lacked the presence other members Quavo and Offset had. This is definitely not the case as I enjoyed his verses in the mentioned song “Straightenin” and even carried some songs such as “Type Shit”, “What You See”, and “Avalanche”.

Speaking of “What You See”, there are definitely some examples of the Migos trying to diversify their sound as a group. This song that features Justin Bieber and the song “Antisocial” that features late artist Juice Wrld are two songs I did not see coming. Migos has definitely been a group that always showed aggression in the rap game and rarely a side that showed sensitivity. Both these songs go over topics such as love, relationships, drug abuse, and overall heartbreak. Having each member of the group dedicate a verse to these songs allowed me to think of them in a more human scope, giving much more complexity to the image of “Migos” overall. I really enjoyed both these songs, which would end up answering the first question of whether or not I saw experimentation in this project. I’d say that I did, so that’s a yes. What about the second one? Can these songs go head to head with the other popular rap songs of today? To be honest, I’d say yes to that as well. The production on this project is phenomenal, and while I don’t get the grittiness from the first “Culture” album, I’m given a steady trap album that has more chill sounds to help flaunt the iconic image Migos has today. Overall, I would give this album a 7.5/10 as I did enjoy a good amount of songs. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a great week!

 

Favorite Songs: Avalanche, Having Our Way, Straightenin, Type Shit, Malibu, Modern Day, Roadrunner, What You See, Antisocial, Mahomes, Light It Up, Need It