Manny King John
Last week, Miami’s own Zoey Dollaz and Atlanta artist Yoko Twazy released their first collaborative project ‘Yoko Dollaz’. The seven-track mixtape offers listeners a drawn-out muddy flow over a traditional Southern-style production. There is a lot of raw emotion and auto-tune embedded in the Trap tale, which consists of two similar struggles and transitions.
The opening track ‘Hood Angel’ starts with Yoko Twazy’s spitting in a deep voice conversing with his guardian “hood angel”; asking why he faces demons every day. In his second verse, he switches it up to a Young Thug style—high-pitched auto-tune paired with yelling. It actually sounds pretty good, but the auto-tune and higher voice range makes it hard to differentiate parts of his verses from Zoey Dollaz’s. However, Zoey takes a more subtle laid backflow for his only verse in the song.
‘Sauce’ is minimalist in its lyrical content especially Zoey’s hook, but the beat is very complex and the flute is reminiscent of Future’s hit ‘Mask Off’. Both Yoko and Zoey come in with nice triplet flows that match the high hat triplets and double kicks.
The third track ‘Like Me’ gives off R&B vibes and is probably the slowest song on the project. Yet, the two rappers’ muddy flows sync well with the offbeat simple kick.
Yoko comes at everyone’s throats in the hook and his verse for trust issues. He’s letting the world know he’s been in his bag focused since he was a kid. Zoey too lets the audience know he can’t waste time or trust any females around him. As far as production is concerned, the piano keys in the background add a nice classical hip hop touch. ‘Trust Issues’ is the most cohesive song on the mixtape and I can see it being a club hit.
‘Faded’ opens with Zoey spilling his intoxicated violent thoughts over a melodic beat carried by light string keys, fluttering snares, and a simple kick. This track is truly packed with raw emotion because Yoko shares the tragedy of witnessing his mother get murdered as a child and how he struggles with not being able to catch the guy that did it. Murder is on their minds on this track, but for different reasons.
The last track ‘Look Like Dope’ is a fun song where Yoko and Zoey switch off verses a little faster than before. Most of this song is carried by the beat with refreshing drum breaks that make this song unique from the rest of the project. It serves as a good outro track and gives the listener time to reflect.
Overall, ‘Yoko Dollaz’ is a well-produced mixtape and both artists know how to switch up their flows well. However, my biggest criticism is still that there are times when the heavily saturated auto-tune makes it difficult to tell Yoko and Zoey apart.
