“Beach Cruiser” is Glasses Malone’s debut album. He is from L.A. and he is representing the West Coast in a major way. The album was scheduled to be released in 2007, but after record label changes, album leaks, and other issues it was delayed until now. This is his first album, but he sounds like a veteran in the rap game. With more albums like this, it is only a matter of time before he is mentioned with the other great rappers from the West Coast.

Glasses Malone did a lot of things right on this album such as his hard hitting beats, keeping a good mix of everything, and having guest stars to mix things up, but not outshine him on his album. My favorite songs were “Kickstand,” “Eastsidin,” “Hold on,” “Car Wash,” “Til da sun come Up,” and “Club Heaven.” All these songs were complete and I plan to add all of them on my Ipod. On the album, along with the West Coast beats that cover a majority of the songs, he raps over Dirty South beats, Old School beats, and East Coast beats, but he gives them a West Coast twist. I could also hear that some of the songs were influenced by Jay-Z, Young Jeezy, Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, Eazy-E, T.I., and Snoop Dogg. In addition, he had a decent amount of guest stars on the album (T-Pain, Akon, Snoop Dogg, and Rick Ross to name a few), but it was not in excess and you were always reminded this was a Glasses Malone album. Lastly, his grungy voice added a lot of emotions to his songs and gave it that extra rawness you don’t hear in rap as much anymore.

They only gripes I did have about the album were the songs entitled, “I get Doe” and “Rich n Thuggin.” It’s not that they were bad songs, they just didn’t fit in with the rest of the album. I felt Glasses Malone was out of his element on these songs. They would have been better songs for other rappers. Other than these two songs, I loved the rest of the album.

For a debut album, Glasses Malone sure knew what he was doing with this album. I recommend this album to other rap fans out there. It has the radio-friendly songs for parties and the general audiences and the hardcore rap songs for the avid gangster rap fans. I can’t wait for his next album or mixtape because he has made a fan out of me. For those reasons, I am giving this album an “A-.”