How do you write a bad review for a good kid who is doing his best? Let’s begin: Jay Cinema is a conspicuously average rapper. His rhyme schemes are simple & straightforward, his flow is conversational but meandering, and his actual bars read like first drafts or journal entries. Yet he says it himself on track 10: “I know my role, not a star player.” This kind of self-awareness, along with his deep, wide-ranging love of the genre, is the whole of his unassuming charm.
Long term, that’s likely going to work out for him, because he’s an honest dude who loves to rap. As he continues to find his center, he’ll hone in on the lane that best suits him. To my ears, that’s the jazzy, dirty, melodic and slightly broken boom bap that makes up the best of A Smile to a Tear.
If I was covering this LP for Village Voice, I wouldn’t offer any technical critiques at all. I would write about how this album documents a specific moment in time, celebrating a thriving corner of the NYC underground. This LP is a hot mess, no question, but that’s only because Jay Cinema himself exists at the crossroads of so many sounds & styles.
When you see “prod. by shemar” in the credits, buckle the fuck up. Sure enough, once those trademarks broken waveforms come crashing in for the fourth track, it’s a jarring turn. The vibe Jay was building up prior to this was squarely De La Soul, so the drop into Backwoodz / Antipop Consortium terrain is a ballsy move. The problem is, his vocals mostly disappear into the maelstrom. He just doesn’t have the fire or the timbre to cut through the mix, so these tracks wind up sounding more like interludes than songs.
“Sounding more like interludes than songs” also neatly describes a great many whole-ass albums coming out of the East Coast Underground these days. Since Tase Grip put the world on notice, everyone is trying to replicate that recipe through sheer extertion. Most of them lack the pen game, signal chain or high-IQ paranoia to do any of that: the old cliche about needing to know the rules you’re breaking will always hold true.
The album snaps back into focus with a killer guest verse from rivan, an 802 transplant currently making his name in the Big Apple ecosystem. Both emcees do justice to the jazz-prog-funk sonics, and it’s a smooth transition into two consecutive Cam Barnes heaters. Which is yet another unexpected Green Mountain connection: Barnes put in a truly obsessive amount of work honing his craft in the dorms & apartments around UVM and he’s evolved into an absolute monster.
The other big standout here is Tony Seltzer, a Brooklyn soundsmith with a gift for bridging the gap between art-rap melodics and good old fashioned trap bangers. He delivers some of the most interesting beats in the tracklist and it’s a solid fit for Jay Cinema’s style. Boston producer lilith gave him some heaters, too, and did a decent job mastering a bastard batch of chaotic beats into a semi-coherent album.
One of those heaters closes out the album. “Smile” is a fitting capstone: the rapper never quite measures up to the huge, triumphant sound, the muscular midrange crowds out every word he says, and after his verse fizzles out at the end, the song just abruptly fades out. Curtains down, raise the lights, thanks for coming.
There is a tremendous amount of room for growth here, and the pacing and structuring of an album is towards the top of that long list. This is not a snide dismissal: Jay Cinema is, actively, obviously, doing the work. He will continue to improve and evolve. He is surrounded by a high tide of NYC underground energy that’s on par with the Rawkus into Def Jux era, even if the sound is almost diametrically different.
So I’m sold on Jay Cinema himself even if I’m barely feeling the actual album. Five years from now, I believe he will be nigh unrecognizable as an artist. Either way, what I believe means nothing. Reviews are pure unsolicited advice, so here’s one more banger: not getting stoned all the time is a great cure for going broke living paycheck to paycheck. Three Dickies.
