Back in August 2018, TDE first announced the signing of Reason. Now, two years later, we're seeing the West Coast rapper really settle into his role within the label and his sound, with his second project under the label, New Beginnings, out today. It seems, like many of his TDE counterparts, he needed to get one album deep to truly develop his sound and find his own creative spin-- there is a trend of the second album among TDE signees to be preferential: ScHoolboy came with Habits & Contradictions, Ab-Soul had Control System, Jay Rock dropped 90059, while Kendrick Lamar was Section.80. Each of these albums marked a turning point in the artist's respective careers, and each still hold up in the artist's respective larger discography. We'll have to see if this trend comes to fruition with Reason as well, but upon the first listen of New Beginnings, he seems to be on the right path.
Among the early records on in the tracklist, there is the definite stand-out "Stories I Forgot." This is the type of banger we love the TDE team for, in fact, the song feels like it somehow works at the intersection of all four Black Hippy members-- and yet, there, we find Reason. And for his part, Reason has a stranglehold on the sinister West Coast beat, stretching his cadence to exciting new heights, and then, restraining it, lazily hammering off the hook. Just as menacing as the production from Kal Banx, are Reason's bars, where he reminisces on gangster activities, with memorable lines like, "Keisha, I done missed ya, nut and doze off/Called me, say she pregnant, bitch, that's your fault."
The result is a captivating, late-night, car-ready banger, and incidentally, one that could also work extremely well on a Halloween playlist.
Let us know in the comments what your favorite song off the project is.
Quotable Lyrics
Woah, shit, get the whole clip, knock his face back
Did that to my little homie, it was hard to face that
Had to tell his mom they caught that nigga while they search for me
Now she praying hurt on me, popping pills, too numb to see
Drinking liquor, smoking weed, hoping they don't come for me
Nah, I hope they come for me so I can get some vengeance