Although I have heard of KSI and have watched the odd few videos made by him, I can’t say that I actually follow him or keep up to date with his life. I understand that he is a huge YouTuber, known predominantly for gaming, with a fan-base that spans the globe; pretty good commercial appeal eh. It wasn’t surprising to me that he went into the music world because many YouTuber’s obviously believe in logical progression, as they should do too. If you have a following that is substantial then why not use it to promote what you love doing. With no further adieu, let’s review his new track ‘Jump Around’…
This might be an unpopular opinion, but this song is worse than awful. As you can guess by the title, the track is a cover/remake of the House of Pain classic ‘Jump Around’, a song that nobody was asking to be remade, nor did anyone dislike in the first place. I think this cover in particular, wins laziest track of the year by a mile. There is no innovation, variation or imagination with this track, it is a beat for beat remake with some shoddy lyrics. On the subject of lyrics, how cheesy can you get! You have absolute gems of phrases like, ‘The new jumpman, from the UK gang, no baller but i give you girls that 2K Slam’, great, I bet it took you three whole minutes to come up with that metaphor. The delivery/vocal performance was a saving grace since they were belted out with enthusiasm; the tone of his voice did become grating by the final chorus however.
Also what was the point of Waka Flocka Flame in this track? Was it just to add a big name? He raps for say, twenty seconds if that and it just felt so tagged on; tacky even. Half of his lines are repeated too; the delivery was lacklustre to say the least. He wasn’t necessary and it was obvious. KSI is already a big name, you don’t have to hamstring yourself by using features from artists you think will add some star quality.
Decent production kept this song from being a car-crash. The beat sounded thick and wholesome, the instrumentation sounded well mixed and the vocals fitted in to the overall sound very well. Thank god for producers being the professionals here.
3/10 – Leaving the rapping to the rappers (although I know you won’t).
String Buzz 