Niagara - Redveil

Intro:

Redveil has been gaining a lot of notoriety recently. Many users on Hip-Hop Twitter have praised this project, such as @ShrekKnowsRap for example. The Maryland rapper is actually 16 years old & this album is his biggest release to date. Some may credit the controversy with Anthony Fantano for many discovering Redveil, but I think this project gathered a lot of attention on its own. Regardless, I went into Niagara without expectations.

Strengths:

One of my favorite things about Redveil is his versatility. He shows to be perfectly capable of flowing on more traditional Hip-Hop production & the more modern trap style. The beats are primarily sample-based regardless, and there are many great beats (Ex. Fastlane & Pigeonman).

Redveil has a pretty chill & subdued delivery throughout the tape. Even when harmonizing, he sounds good on almost each attempt. Still though, over harder beats he does up the energy. I like that he can rap well, but knows how to dumb it down if needed. His themes are usually centered around himself, the streets & police brutality. On “Weight” he raps:

“Now I got a lil older, no love for the system and I'm reaching bad for the grip now

And it's really fuck twelve I done grown in my self to point I can see that they haters”

Weaknesses:

There really wasn’t much of anything I actually disliked about Niagara. One criticism I do see a lot is that he sounds like his influences. Specifically, it’s very easy to hear the Earl comparison in some of Redveil’s flows, rhyme patterns & production choice. There are other songs that remind me of other artist’s though like Saba on “Drown” & the intro track.

The mixing is also spotty in some areas. Drown was the worst offender of this, where lines in the chorus get swallowed in the song’s instrumental. The only other critique I have is that the features didn’t catch my attention much. Junii & Cameron Bolden were clear standouts for me, but none of the others were necessarily “bad”.

Overall:

Anyone writing off Redveil or this project as an “Earl clone” are not listening in my opinion. Niagara is definitely one of my favorite releases to come out this year so far. I can confidently say I’ll still feel this way at the end, and I’m genuinely excited for his future. He’s still a very young artist that’s early in his career, and the potential is extremely apparent. Thank you all for reading and be sure to listen to the album yourself with the link below.