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Writer's pictureTaj Mayfield

Cactus Jack: "JACKBOYS" Review

What...the fuck...is we...doing? Seriously, what is this Travis?

It's nearly impossible for a Travis Scott-ran label with Don Toliver and Sheck Wes headlining the roster to release a project as forced and forgettable as JACKBOYS.


Discounting the remix of one unimaginative song everyone had already forgotten about and the instrumental intro track, JACKBOYS is essentially three wasted instrumentals, a reminder that Young Thug is a whiter name away from being bigger than Travis Scott, and a Don Toliver highlight reel.


The best song on the project, "OUT WEST", sounds like a So Much Fun deluxe edition throwaway, as Young Thug opens the track, does the hook and closes the track. Travis Scott, the lone Cactus Jack representative on the label's best song, raps and "oohs" for all of 39 seconds.


Don Toliver and Travis Scott collab on "WHAT TO DO?" to live up to their "Can't Say" performance and show the potential of Cactus Jack collaboration. Scott and Toliver autotune their way through a brilliantly produced track and drop off a great morning-after song. This is the best performance from Travis Scott on the album and the lone song that doesn't sound like a mixed and mastered throwaway.


On "GATTI" Pop Smoke comes through with his usual Osmosis Jones antagonist energy, but the track sounds like a cheap "Welcome to the Party" remake with a lazy Travis Scott feature. The surface-level song is a great singular representation of the entire project.


Calling JACKBOYS a project feels like a slight to the real collaboration projects.


JACKBOYS isn't a project like Cruel Summer that took months to create, regardless of what Travis Scott tells the media. JACKBOYS isn't a project like What A Time To Be Alive, where artists locked themselves in a studio for a short time and energized each other. JACKBOYS isn't a Quality Control project that throws 25 throwaways at you but gives the audience 10 hits if they sit through it.


JACKBOYS isn't a project. JACKBOYS is Cactus Jack collectively scraping together 20 minutes of sound to sell two weeks' worth of equally lazy merch.


Final Score: Rue 21/10

 

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