Artist: Truth
Mixtape: First Impression
Presented by TruthMuzik.com

Artists receive notoriety through their music, between concept and lyrical matter, amongst their peers. Practicing what you preach is also an essential element when it comes to creditability and acceptance, whether street or industry. So before I even got into the mixtape, the titles seem to have already got my attention and the fact that there is no DJ hosting this mixtape. Truth be told, the notoriety is there.

Truth exhibits much pain and struggle through his music, he showcases a lot of it in his lyrics as he doesn’t seem to hold back on anything that he means to say. With the addition of the production and the sounds that he decided to incorporate into this tape matches his emotions through tones and delivery. His music seems to follow a pattern, tracks like ‘Hustlers Ambition,’ ‘What I Do,’ ‘Deepest Thoughts,’ ‘Stepping Stone,’ and ‘Non Stop’ stood out to me as he expressed his inspirations onto the tracks. Interestingly enough, without losing the flow and the delivery, Truth is still able to give you different sides of him as he definitely covers all angles. Between A.J. the R&B General and Casely featured as the vocal talents, Truth has some R&B styles in him as he knows how to get the ladies attention as well.

Tracks like ‘I Go Hard,’ ‘Ain’t Bout That Life,’ ‘Code of the Streets,’ ‘Goon Affiliated,’ and ‘Envy Me’ provides that gangster vibe that makes Truth that versatile artist. He knows the game and he knows what the fans want to hear. These tracks are what I normally call those war anthem tracks, joints that you ride in the car with your boys, or the ones that gets the crowd hype in the clubs. Billy Blue adding that intro on that ‘Ain’t Bout That Life’ was definitely official, as well as the Brisco feature on ‘Goon Affiliated,’ Bris is that original Opa-locka goon.

All in all, everything from the production to the lyrics, to even the features that he carefully selected to collaborate on certain tracks answers many questions that he took this tape quite seriously. With the beats and their respective features, it’s good to know that he’s aware of the artists and what beat they would sound good on. This mixtape is a perfect example of not judging a book by its cover, after bumping the CD in my car and on the desktop, this is something I would have to understand and give time to. He narrates stories in his tracks through selected beats that mesh with the lyrics profoundly. Listen to his lyrics as they bleed through the production, definitely mad props to his producers on individual tracks. Cop it, download it, however you get a hold of this, you have to give it a listen. Very seldom do I find albums or mixtapes that I ride straight through, this is one of them.

Most Notable Tracks:

G Shit featuring CNN
What I Do featuring Kulture Shock
Hustler’s Ambition
Bad Boy featuring A.J. the R&B General
I Go Hard
Deepest Thoughts
Stepping Stone
Ain’t Bout That Life featuring A.J. the R&B General
Code of the Streets featuring Triple Cs
Non Stop
Goon Affiliated featuring Brisco
Envy Me featuring C-Ride & Young Apollo

Here is the playlist: