Back with his follow up effort to his 2013 EP Crushed Grapes on Man Bites Dog Records, Brooklyn’s AG Da Coroner serves up the gritty, street sound New York was once known for with Sip the Nectar. In the 90s and through the early 00s, the brash tales and wordplay of New York MCs shined bright in juxtaposition to the funk inspired West Coast sound. Unfortunately for AG, in 2016, Sip the Nectar comes off as an attempt to hold on to a lost sound that hasn’t been in demand since Mobb Deep spurned an offer from Shady Records to fizzle out on G-Unit.
The album opens up over an increasingly repetitive and generic Statik Selektah soundbed for “The Game Changer” as AG introduces himself as the man of the people in an underwhelming frenzy with bars like, “Don’t ever try to play me, my pops dukes is Johnny my moms name Daisy /The nigga they created came out a little crazy” and enforces his bravado with “So miss me with the hoopla or end up where my shoes are (on the floor)” and “I wish one of you fools would say something to me, I face slap the shit out of all of you jive coonies.”
Low points on the album continue with “Death Camp” as homophobic epithets are still being used as heterosexual insults in Hip Hop; forgettable moments such as “Castor Troy” and tracks like “Underdog” that don’t fit sonically within the album.
All is not lost, however, as AG comes through on the Action Bronson and Roc Marciano-featured “Park Ave”, the Bodega Bamz-assisted “I95,” and the title track “Sip the Nectar” where AG displays ability to hit hard with straightforward bravado as he belts “My jersey hanging from the rafters, I been ill since Sho Nuff was the master” and “The Last Dragon, my pants saggin’ / no skinny jeans, I let the semi lean and unload it on any team”.
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Perhaps the strongest exhibition of AG’s raw ability is shown on the most sobering and relatable track with “My Truth.” AG opens up and bears his soul as he recants stories of growing up as his parents split to smelling crack for the first time as a kid. AG is at his best as he reflects “How can I see change when I don’t even have change /To buy a snack from the store, how can I hide the pain?” overtop wafting, melancholic horns.
In the end, the high points of the album were not enough to overcome the glaring miscues and repetitiveness for AG. Rather than find himself in a more modern approach to lyricism and production, AG cemented himself in the 90s with a dated sounding album that’s akin to the neighborhood old head screaming to youths from the stoop: “Y’all don’t know nothing about that real Hip-Hop!”
