Before I say anything, this is easily one of the funnier album covers I’ve ever seen.

Alright, down to business. Rick Ross has been pretty busy this year. And by being pretty busy, I mean he’s slowly became incredibly annoying. In 2010, it seemed like he was finally on top of the world. Teflon Don managed to be a great album, and he had some fantastic verses on other people’s albums (His verse on Kanye’s MBDTF on Devil In a New Dress is still one of my favorite Hip-Hop verses, period). However, this year, his cartoonish personality became less charismatic and entertaining. It transformed into something annoying and obnoxiously omnipresent.

With all his Maybach Music cronies trying to make names for themselves, Rozay has been all over. He had his first mixtape way back in January (Which was pretty solid), that MMG compilation in early Summer (Which was OK), and then he had his OK but disappointing album God Forgives, I Don’t in late July. Plus he’s been running around trying to prove that Meek Mill and all those other guys on MMG our worth our attention. By releasing so much material in a small amount of time, Rick Ross has in a way watered down the quality of his own music.

On this latest tape (The 4th Rick Ross full length this year…), Rick Ross pulls a Dedication and raps over the beats of others. Normally, if you rap over beats people are already familiar, you’re supposed to bring something to the table lyrically and stylistically. Rick Ross does neither of these things.

The one original beat on the album, on Intro, is basically a Maybach Music Group newsletter. He announces Meek Mill’s new album, the MMG tour, Shouts out “All his partners” (AKA His labels Def Jam and Warner Bros. and the corporations that pay him to wear their sneakers and drink their liquor). It’s painful to listen to, as it starts the tape off in weak fashion and really does nothing to better the tape.

The first track on the tape, he raps over the G.O.O.D. Music remix of Don’t Like, replacing Pusha T’s verse. He basically talks about what he always talks about (Crazy street stuff and how he’s rich now). His flow is typical, and isn’t anything different or interesting. Oh, and he shouts out his labels and sponsors again. Then, instead of ending the song early, he just includes the rest of the original song, keeping the entire verses of Kanye, Chief Keef, and Jadakiss. This is a bad idea because all three show how weak Rozay’s verse is in comparison.

Some of the beats he borrows just don’t suit him well. Ross tries to rap fast over the Mercy beat but it just makes him seem slow and incredibly out of place. Rockie Fresh also drops a verse, but the song is produced so weird that it just feels tacked on and out of place. Not to mention it’s incredibly forgettable. Oh, and then he still keeps better verses by Kanye and 2 Chainz on the song. The same problem happens on his redo of Clique. Burn is another one that kind of works, but again Rozay’s slower flow doesn’t really match the intensity of the beat.

Some of the beats do work better. Rick Ross sounds good on the southern boom Us (Drake, however…). Birthday is such an ignorant song that it does work with Rick Ross. That’s one thing that makes this Mixtape at least kind of work. The amount of beats that Rick Ross sounds OK over is at a higher percent than other mixtapes similar to this (Like that Lil Wayne disaster Dedication 4).

He then redoes his own song on 911, adding 2 Chainz. The song works better on this mixtape than it did on the album, but it still isn’t anything incredibly special. The second half is built off of beats I’m not as familiar with, but none of them work to astounding degrees. Some of them have obnoxious hooks (Or beats in general), and Rick Ross doesn’t really add anything to them. Some of the songs do become original (Why are they at the end of the album?), but they don’t really do Rick Ross or his guests any justice.

Most songs are just OK, or worse. The whole tape just feels like a throwaway advertisement for (hopefully) better MMG projects and whatever else Rick Ross is being fed…I mean…paid to promote.

Summary: The Black Bar Mitzvah is forgettable and mostly a throwaway that feels more like an advertisement than an actual mixtape.

Choice Cuts- 911, Birthday Song

1.5/5

You can download the mixtape here.