I’m immediately annoyed by dude’s voice. Or is that Shylow’s vocal timbre? Either way, this isn’t doing much for me. Not mad at the Redman scratch though.

While I certainly don’t expect this to be as good as MC Chill’s ‘Nightmare on Chill Street’, I’m beginning to suspect that A-F-R-O is far more concerned with the flash and dazzle of constructing endless multis than actually capturing the listener’s attention. It all kind of blends into in the background after a while. I do like the beat though.

Monch makes like Eminem and burns dude on his own shit. Plus I have to deduct points for the shots fired at my number one sheila, Iggy.

Dude suddenly activates ‘Skank Hoes’ mode out of nowhere, which is disconcerting coming from a dude who looks about 12 years old.

In the immortal words of Mobb Deep, this very much ‘some old outer space shit that don’t even make no sense’. Fro uses the word ‘alien’ around 30 times, if that kind of thing is important to you.

Makes me want to ‘use this skip track button’.

Now he’s talking about vampires, which confirms my suspicion that A-F-R-O has listened to far too much Chino XL and Last Emperor.

This is easily the best song on the EP, with a laid-back tempo that gives dude room to breathe. As a result, he  sounds right at home and manages to keep my attention for the track’s entire duration.

Despite not being directly responsible for the tag ‘the future of old school rap’, ‘Fro doesn’t help matters with lines such as ‘the nineties are living – yes!’ There’s no denying that he can construct a complex verse, but only time will tell if A-F-R-O can match the conceptual heights of an Organized Konfusion in their prime.

This free EP plays like the modern-day equivalent of a demo tape, and based on that criteria it works as far as showcasing a talented young rapper dude who is more concerned with lyrical acrobatics than just getting by on attitude alone. Nevertheless, he’s still got some work to do before he’s ready for the major leagues in terms of being discussed in the same category as his myriad influences. In short? The potential is there but I’m looking for him to dig deeper.

As for the whole concept that ‘old school’ rap has a ‘future’? That’s simply a case of click-bait internets headlines at their most baffling and oxymoronic. Take a long, hard look at yourselves, rap blogs. Think about what you’ve done and have a 2000-word essay on what you believe defines old school hip-hop on my desk before class tomorrow morning or it’s a week’s detention for the lot of you.