Is it called trap music because the tracks hold you in place, preventing you from being able to stop listening? A quick Google search tells me that trap is so called because of its dark, bassy ambience and quick cut high hats, a sonic representation of the atmosphere in a “trap house” where drug deals go down.
But Lil Tecca’s debut mixtape, We Love You Tecca, makes trap seem like a thing you’ve fallen into, and prevented from leaving until the tape is finished.
There’s nothing wrong with the 17-year-old rapper’s rhymes or flow. They just all sound the same, and by track 10 you’re wondering if there are many more things left to brag about. If I took all of the names off the tracks and played them randomly, you’d struggle to tell which track was which.
There are some highlights. “Ransom,” Tecca’s biggest song yet, is a solid viral hit. “Shots” and “Left, Right” have some interesting instrumentation behind the beat, but the rest are forgettable and too similar to stand out. This makes the constant reprises of “We love you, Tecca” that pepper later tracks annoying and self indulgent.
Lil Tecca is a product of the Soundcloud/Spotify generation, where speed, repetition and memeability are highly rewarded. At 17, he has chops and plenty of time to keep developing as an artist, but with We Love You Tecca some better beats and lyrical diversity could have helped turn this debut full-length into a respectable album, instead of a one-hit mixtape surrounded by filler.
Score: 🍋🍋/5
Brendan is an avid record collector from Adelaide, Australia and the man behind the @ridges_and_grooves. There are few genres he won’t listen to. His search for the best album of all time through process of elimination continues.