“I of The Storm” comes after Tempest’s previous Mixtape release “Takin’ Tha Game By Storm” and “The Storm is Coming” playing with the definition of his name creating coherency between the two releases and reigning with his lyrics over beats dominantly produced by Veinz and Pezey Krack.
“Follow Me” the intro track brings a calm before the storm vibe, making you feel a slight drizzle and opening the album promising you a personal travel through his own storm. Trailing off with a electric guitar leading into “Tha Incomparable” produced by Veinz where the beat and Tempest’s voice takes a switch into a epic tone, this is where the storm begins with lyrics like “…I ain’t gon’ lie to you, how you gon’ kill me son, Christ wouldn’t die for you”. In “Tell Myself” Tempest shows his creative side with a beautiful ending, having a conversation with his self, this track further defines the turbulence that goes on in his mind. Pezey Krack weaves a fleeting flute melody adding to a smooth flow that Tempest flawlessly delivers over the beat.
In “Heart of Stone” Tempest picks his flow up traversing a strong beat sampling Skid Row’s 18 and Life, produced by A Stylez. Tempest digs us deeper into his mind with “I know a few who betrayed my trust, maybe I was just betrayed by trust…”. “Need to know” love it, love the hook and it never hurts to sample Elton. Stewrat takes a mellow Elton John track and transform it into a single ready track. This is one of my favorite tracks on the album, had to stop listening to the rest of it for this one. After a couple of tracks Tempest picks it up with a high energy track “Don’t Hate Me”, still following the premise of the album he bleeds his heart out with a smooth flow and coincidently the words Heart of Stone seeps in from the sample connecting it with the “Heart of Stone” track, questioning himself.
Some tracks that don’t particularly come hard defer from the rest of the album like “Weekend Girl” or “Pandora’s Box” which the album could have done with out but the storm picks back up with “The March” leading into a few collabo tracks with JYoung from their Stick 2 Tha Script group. “Domino Effect” stands out with Tempest and Vs Stylez switching back and forth throughout the whole track bar after bar over a A Stylez beat. “I’s Closed” running at 7 minutes didn’t seem like it, when it ended I didn’t know that much time went by, great track.
“I of Tha Storm” shows that Tempest has a good ear for picking beats and with lyrics that keep you listening no matter how the beat sounds, but for this album the majority of the beats meld his delivery and content together. Tempest pulls you in and lets you know how he feels to understand how the center of his own storm is emotionally charged showing off his versatility in topics and style. The album closes off with “My Reply”, making you feel like you weathered the storm. Overall “I of Tha Storm” is beyond a solid album, it is the stepping stool that Tempest will be put on when he releases again, the tracks that don’t stand out is not saying much because they are still good, they just stand next to too many other great tracks that outshine them.
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I sampled Olivia Newton John. not Elton John lol
Ahh see that’s what I get for going off of memory, will fix.