Review: Vakill - The Darkest Cloud

Vakill's debut album from back in 2003 remains one of the best battle rap albums to this day. Calling Vakill a battle rapper is misleading though; yes he is relentless with the punchlines, raps about rapping and can name a thousand ways to destroy an MC with every pun, similie, metaphor in the book BUT he's also capable of writing introspective, reflective tracks - displaying a self-awareness often lacking from other battle rappers - as well as some vivid 'story' tracks that range from a friends suicide to the narrative of a fictional graff writer. His greatest strength though is his lyricism and he has more quotables on this one album than the vast majority of rappers have in their whole catalouge, no exaggeration! Wordplay? Check! Puns? Check! Similies (that aren't corny as fuck)? Check! You name any aspect of lyricism and Vakill has it on show for you.

'My Hip-Hop status is C-section, coz' i'm a cut above you pussys'

'During the Rodney King riots when n****s tore down and ravaged our community, 
I pulled bricks from the wall of my imagination and threw them through my window of oppurtunity'

'My quotes cock block throats, 
till emcees unable to respond like i just told a homeless person a knock knock joke'

'Competition is like parking spaces, good ones ones are hard to find everything else is handicapped '

His delivery and flow are a little uncouth with his lines often extending past the end of the bar and the delivery is occasionally rushed in an effort to cram in a bunch of syllables but the style grows on you the more you play the album through. Production wise it's generally your typical battle rap beats, some nice samples and some repetitive beats that hurt the tracks replay value. The same applies for the album's choruses and I start to find myself after a while skipping the odd track that lacked in both categories, regardless of how nice the lyrics were.

83/100

Highlights: Sickplicity, Darkest Cloud, Creed, Forbidden Scriptures

Lowlights: -

Similar Style To: Chino XL but with more versatility

Future Listening: If you enjoyed this i'd recommend Vakill's sophomore album, Worst Fears Confirmed. His third album, Armour of God, is due out sometime in 2011.