Chicago rapper Valee now joins forces with Detroit producer Black Noi$e for his 5th EP. Making his name known by releasing 3 mixtapes and a few EPs from 2015-2018, just one of my top 10 producers of all time Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, signed him to a joint deal with GOOD Music. & Def Jam Recordings. The next 2 EPs GOOD JOB, you found me & Runnin' Rich helped popularize plugg music to a mainstream audience, despite both receiving mixed reception to the point where he would go solo from Tuesday forward. I should also mention that Valee has an additional 2 EPs with AYOCHILLMAN as The TrAppiEst duo as well as 2 more with ChaseTheMoney as VTM duo & 1 with Stan Lane as Vlane duo. Anyway, his big debut Virtuoso Harry Fraud's production from last summer won me over and I was confident Partridge being just as enjoyable.
“Partridge” is a heavy trap opener with Valee bragging about putting a bitch in Chanel and skating harder than Molly Bloom, while “Clutch” works on that crazy tempo switch near the 2 minute mark so the dude to be able to present his lifestyle in wax. . “DiGiMon” follows the eerie boom bap route talking instrumentally about fucking on the money, while “Ruff” pushes towards the end of the EP taking a sweet trap turn flying to Berlin and playing with the idea of taking on something new. The “Sonnet” ends Partridge cloudily showing off his rocking baby “A monkey bathing without a monkey in the middle.
Initially, I had Runnin' Rich as my favorite Valee EP since it got everything GOOD JOB, you found me & improved upon it. 5 years later, he outdoes himself here as he did with Harry Freud Virtuoso last summer. Black Noi$e's production is more experimental than Harry's on the first LP, and the performances from Valee himself are an improvement over some of the other material he's given us in the last 10 months since then.
Rating: 8/10
