Fool's Gold

On his sixth studio album, Big B aka Bryan Mahoney, collects an arsenal of his music friends to pump out an album that’s filled to the brim with intellectual verses and his mixture of rap, rock, and reggae vibes to deliver a positive outlook on the negativity of the world.

Featuring guest appearances by Slightly Stoopid, Colt Ford, The Dirty heads, Byron McMacki of Pennywise, El Hefe of NOFX, and even sports a track that was co-written by Pink and Butch Walker, Bring The Lightning.

Right out of the gate I was impressed with Big B’s take on the world as he describes this plastic universe that’s been built up over the past few decades where music has gone to the dogs, the way in which the internet has corrupted our way of thinking by allowing a certain type of anonymity to enable the worst in people and the lemmings that follow along with, what appears to be, a majority way of thinking. It’s created this gigantic consensus of negativity in the world that has sort of snowballed into this uncontrollable thing that has knocked our positive aspect off its axis.

The album is loaded with a mish mash of styles, as described above, that mostly work, but on a personal level Big B’s sound is a bit familiar with its often times pop sensibilities, well intentioned grooves and lyrical content, and vocal approach. Often times I was reminded of acts like Everlast, Colt Ford, and even Smash Mouth.

I’m such a sucker for fusion music and I really was fascinated by the sounds on this album. Sometimes crisp sounding acoustic guitar, great use of bass guitar, but Big B’s vocals were hit and miss, mostly because of the way their dubbed on contrast with his style and delivery.

Mind you, the album is enjoyable, especially considering B has a lot of heavy things to say in his lyrics. Vocal wise his voice tends to waiver here and there, and the production of is vocal track is so dominating it all but kills the rest of the album to background noise that pops in and out whenever he isn’t flowing, which is a shame seeing as how, when you can hear it, the music is great.

This being B’s sixth album, and his momentum when it comes to putting out music on his terms, it’s more then likely this wont be the last album from his camp (you can also find him along with John E. Necro in their band OPM). Well worth it for the messages contained within, and who knows, maybe the album just needs to grow on me, but for those looking for some new school fusion hip hop, Big B is a discovery you wont regret.