Solo Young’s Thump in the Night is a clear-cut tribute to the late Michael Jackson. The eight-track EP features Thriller-inspired cover art, and the Denver rapper spoke of Jackson’s music helping him through hard times when recently discussing the project with HipHopDx. Given its iconic aspirations, is Thump in the Night a tribute that propels Solo Young to mainstream consciousness, or does it fall flat in its ambition?
While Solo Young’s love for MJ is earnest, a fitting tribute Thump in the Night is not. The production, handled by Xtra and TreezyMadeIt, is too often dark, plodding and creepy. Although the title track to the Michael Jackson classic had elements of darkness, it also contained excitement, and, of course, thrills. Those attributes are sorely missing from records like “Too Impatient” and “Whole Pie.” Both songs outline desires for financial wealth and success that are far too similar in theme to both be necessary even if the production was strong. Elsewhere, “Pen to Palace” suffers from the same musical drudgery, and features rhymes about fame that are audacious for a rapper who, at the time of this posting, doesn’t have his own Wikipedia page.
Indeed, most of the lyrical content on “Thump in the Night” sounds cliché. In addition to the I-made-it track, there are the get-money songs (“Too Impatient,” “Whole Pie,”)-the dealing-with-fame song and relationship cuts (“Called You” serves as both), and the fame-changed-things joint (“Can’t Breathe”). Solo sounds authentic when he’s rapping on these tracks, but his rhymes don’t include any unique storytelling. Save for some occasional wordplay (“I be on cam a lot like King Arthur”, he raps on “Like Pimpin’) he doesn’t have creative ways of expressing himself. The result is the feeling that we’ve heard this story one hundred times before. There are a few standouts. On “Can’t Die” his homage paid to Juvenile’s “Ha” is a delight. Yet, it’s on “Like Pimpin’” that a hungry Young feasts on the track, spitting about how his short time in the game has sharpened his business approach. “Better pay me what you owe me/I don’t let it slide no more that’s the old me,” he snarls over a hypnotic beat.
Hopefully, some more experience in the rap game will sharpen his pedigree as an artist. Thump in the Night features bland content and plodding production that fail to captivate like the pop great who inspired the project.
