A lot has changed for Adrian Marcel over the past year. Right after the release of 7 Days of Weak, his popularity has increased. He has toured and also seen his amount of features increase. In addition to that, he had his Sage The Gemini featured “2 A.M.” single released while being a BET Music Matters artist. With more attention and acclaim earned, Weak After Next is the next musical addition to Adrian Marcel’s catalog. From the beginning of this mixtape, the listener can see that Weak After Next will not suffer from any “sophomore slump” in execution. “Running”, easily one of the mixtape’s highlights, uses its base heavy Vinylz production to exude a warped sexiness that will easily entrance the ears. On the other side, there is the smoothly done “I Get It” and “New Niggas” that actually round out the sound and scope of the album. Even the detracting E-40 verse on “2 Fingers” can’t take away from the overall efficiency of the composition. With the use of consistency and just good music, Adrian Marcel did a delightful job of musical execution. What makes this album superior to the previous effort, is that it is more of an album and less of a collection of songs. The last mixtape sounded like some features, test runs, and cover songs mixed with more original tracks. This mixtape, however, sounds like a fully captured concept of Adrian’s own musical experiences and expressions. Listeners get to appreciate him making his music and growing as an artist. In short, Weak After Next wins because it is way more cohesive. Weak After Next proves that an artist can actually make better music the second time around. Adrian plotted this album out and saw it through. Within that plot was a mixtape that was actually an album with featured DJ’s putting their drops here and there. Adrian capitalized off of the strength of gripping vocals matched with contagious production. In summary, a mixtape entitled Weak After Next had nothing to do with being musically weak at all.
