Queens, New York emcee Flee Lord has returned for what I’m sure is his proper 7th studio LP. Blowing up a decade ago as a protégé of the late Prodigy, he has since become known for building up a massive discography for himself since. This includes the Loyalty or Death: Lord Talk trilogy produced by GodBlessBeatz, the Loyalty or Trust duology produced by 38 Spesh, the DJ Shay-produced Lucky 13, the Buckwild-produced Hand Me My Flowers, the Pete Rock-produced The People’s Champ, the Havoc-produced In the Name of Prodigy, the DJ Muggs-produced RAMM£LLZ££, the Roc Marciano produced Delgado, the RocAmeriKKKa trilogy with Eto & the Mephux-produced Pray for the Evil trilogy. It’s been a couple years since I covered the Raised in the Sand EP & now he’s letting out Everything I Never Said.
“Coinless” was a decent opener wanting to know how these people know everything when they’re broke whereas “I Can Dig It” featuring Eto brings back that RocAmeriKKKa energy talking about pain & bullshit coming with it over a horn instrumental. “Infinite” featuring Pounds448 goes for a sample-driven boom bap vibe dropping verses together without a hook leading into the jazzy “Honoring the Greats” featuring Shoota93 giving their flowers to those who paved the way.
O.T. the Real appears on “Residue” so they can talk about the drums making them go dumb enough to not know shit while “40 Shots” featuring Starz Coleman was an underwhelming gangsta rap single to get the rollout going. The late DJ Ra Lee’s strings on “It Ain’t Safe” featuring Mummz stood out to me even if Flee had the better performance of the 2 once again, but then the 72 second “Stress Turns Into Cancer” freestyle produced by Harry Fraud has to be the most soulfully passionate cut here.
“Floor Seats” kicks off the 4th quarter of Everything I Never Said triumphantly talking about going from pissy hallways to pissy elevators while “Ryder Music” featuring Dirtyyaycochino teams up for another average collab over a soulful boom bap beat. “Quarter Lbs of Rapper” makes up for things with a track that recaptures the feeling of the Euro Money EP putting on his steppers & the closer “Suburban Views” featuring Mickey Factz spends the last couple minutes talking about the real having each other’s backs.
Inspired by him losing 2 friends less than 3 weeks apart from each other, Flee Lord tries something different with Everything I Never Said & that’s one of the biggest compliments I can give it ahead of his upcoming projects produced by Statik Selektah & Apollo Brown respectively. I wouldn’t put it in the same conversations as a lot of his earlier material, but he sounds ready to apply pressure again like he did at the beginning of this decade flowing over tight production with a decent guest list joining him.
Score: 3/5
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