Music Review: Fabolous – Soul Tape 3

Fabolous has actually had a worthwhile, and slightly underachieving, career. He has had albums that have moved plenty of units and singles that received plenty of radio rotation. However, he hasn’t made any notable album releases in recent history. He can still drop the female dedicated single that gets plenty of love. Yet, the release of a powerful album has eluded him.

Then I realized why: he has been reserving his best work for his Soul Tape mixtape series. After giving Soul Tape 3 a thorough listen, the same can be said for it as well.

This mixtape starts off both soul-infused and engaging from the beginning. Within the first three songs (the Stacy Barthe featured “Everything Was The Same”, “Sacrifices”, and “Playa”), all you get is pure soulful realness from Fabolous. And it just continues with tracks like the “Dead Presidents” influenced “The Get Back”, the Young Jeezy featured “You Know”, and the hedonistically truthful “Cuffin’ Season”. Even the powerful feature by Jadakiss on “The Hope” doesn’t take away from the mood that Fabolous has captured on this mixtape. The thing about his mixtape, that his albums as of late haven’t captured, is easily noted in one word: consistency.

The first reason why this mixtape comes off so engaging is due to Fabolous’s lyrical display. “Sacrifices” begins with a full display of honesty and alliteration:

Seeing yo family scrambling, that’s sanity damaging
Gotta make a move, can’t just stand and be mimicking
Have a man who be managing, randomly standing in places he shouldn’t
Tryin to move that Pamela Anderson under…
Standing these hammers and grandma keep paddling
Cuz them niggas from the other side of fence will be vanishing
New day, new funeral, my grandma be panicking
But I gotta eat, she just handing me sandwiches

As you can see, he is giving us realness and literary devices in his rhymes. His lyrical displays of dominance only continue throughout the album. So, many listeners will not that his masterful use of words is pretty proficient.

Another reason his mixtape wins is, of course, the soulful production. “Young OG” bangs out with the same sample that Kanye used on “On Sight”. “Thim Slick”, one of his dedications to his preferential figures on his female acquaintances, is filled with notable boom-bap claps, R&B influenced instrumentals, and sampled vocal wails. Throughout the album, the production is consistently sounding like an old sampled ’45 record from your parents’ basement (or attic). In turn, the soulful production just contributes to why Soul Tape 3 is named what it is.

Outside of the nice but strangely placed “Foreigners” track, you can see why Soul Tape 3 wins. The production is on point. The lyrics are apparently appealing and worthwhile. And his guest list doesn’t outshine him on his own stuff. Now, if only his album could be made in the same form or fashion. Then, we will all know how things can be “fabolous”.