Mally - The Letter Album cover

Words by Darius Sinclair â„¢

Good underground records are a rare find nowadays. With all of our mainstream favorites dropping mixtapes weekly, it steals the shine of those hungry fellas selling plastic-wrapped jewels from their trunk. So, with guys still making full-length albums with the gritty, un-polished sound we need, and not selling out making a snapping CD to get a deal, Gottyâ„¢ has brought to my attention a gifted, underground nugget. I say nugget with the pun intended. Mally, the young’n hailing from the Minnesota Vikings’ headquarters, is sitting on some gold skills. But is his demo/mixtape/debut The Letter gonna shine like 18 karat, or just get tossed out like a piece of fool’s gold? Let’s take a listen.

At jump street, Mally comes poised on The Letter. He has good breath work, and his voice easily listenable. Even more impressive is the idea that he does his tracks in one take. Simply put – Mally flows. Tracks that stood out to me on the first go around were “Write New Writtens” and “Chance”. His punchlines are like those of Fabolous (let me finish) and he doesn’t hold back like Wayne… But those comparisons are about it. Mally is original, but not quite a breathe of fresh air. Nonetheless, he is creative on the track “Chance”. Spoken from his exes point of view, he bashes himself for cheating and for his mannish attitude. Also, Mally apologizes for cussing on a few of his songs with adds a personal note to The Letter. “3rd Chapter” and “Everybody’s Got A Song” are solid songs that have good beats and he flows to them like he made them himself. Check out the “You Ain’t Listening”, ripped over Kanye’s “Grammy Family”. We know the beat is cold, and Mally uses some of his best similes in this song properly, all the while proving that he’s multidimensional.

The album does need some work in many areas. Most notable is the engineering of the tracks. Half of the songs on The Letter either aren’t complete, are not his own instrumentals, or need to be re-layered. And the 26 song track-list (no skits) needs to be slimmed down. Songs like “20 Year Old Hero” and “My Blessing” have unnecessary samples and are too different to give a chance. Hopefully, this album isn’t an album, but a demo tape. Raw talent over beats from the homie that were recorded in your uncle’s basement studio is what we got right here, which some folks love when a work of music has that feel. Mally has some talent, and with the right A&R, we could be looking at the future golden boy of hip hop.

Mally – The Letter

For more info, visit myspace.com/mallyfromthe612 and find more Mally @ datpiff.com.

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From yesterday’s drop, we owed you a fresh link to the Dilla Instrumentals so they’re now up for consumption. Get it while it lasts.