Phil Blount – “How To Put A State On The Map, Vol. 3″ (Mixtape Review)

Phil Blount's hell-bent on making believers out of everyone. If he keeps putting out solid street music like this, it won't take much to accomplish.

Recently I got hit up by Phil Blount via Twitter to check out his mixtape. I’m going to be completely honest. I never heard of the guy before, and I was about to just ignore it, but I never ignore artists on Twitter. On Facebook, sure, but Twitter, no… So after pushing out some other projects, I finally got a chance to listen to his recent mixtape, “How To Put A State On The Map, Vol. 3” and…to be blatant and honest as always…

This was dope. Surprisingly dope.

Hailing from New Haven, Connecticut, and toting a heavy co-sign from Charlamagne “The god” (and I still don’t know why he calls himself that), this is more of a traditional mixtape, containing original songs and the traditional “jackin’ for beats” section which all show off what Blount can do.

Undoubtedly, Phil Blount has a lane in this music thing. His wordplay and his overall style is gritty but clever, and some of his punchlines are just ridiculous. It’s easy to feel that Jadakiss, street-smart vibe from the way Blount attacks tracks, which is a GREAT thing.

The production for the entire mixtape is solid, and Blount bodies in verse pretty much every track. If you have any doubts that the man is skilled with his words and that he doesn’t know how to ride beats, just listen to the first few tracks.  Another thing I loved was how the mixtape sampled several other songs in the hooks, from Jay-Z (“You Will”) to Biggie (“No Suckas Here”) to T-Pain (“Baddest Man Alive”).

(Note: Jay-Z and Biggie’s sample are pretty common, but props to the producer for the T-Pain sample for pulling a rabbit out of the hat and sampling T-Pain’s verse from Huey’s “Pop Lock & Drop It” remix. That was unexpectedly dope)

Although the mixtape is above average and one of the better mixtapes I’ve heard this year, there were a couple of songs that just didn’t seem as if it had the same level of detail to it.”Headshot” is street music, but the hook for it doesn’t seem inspired at all, and this cycle repeats on a few more songs. Some of the hooks just don’t pop off, but thankfully it’s only a few songs that suffer from that on “Vol. 3” and songs like “Facing Fears” go a long way to redeem the previous missteps.

Bottom line, if you dig that mix of street music and hip-hop, not unlike how Jadakiss and The Lox sounds, I got something for you. This might not be the tape to put Connecticut on the map, but Phil Blount’s definitely on the right track with this one. It’ll be interesting to see what he does next…

Eljay’s Favorites

• “Facing Fears”
• “Hammer Cocked Back”
• “You Will”
• “Grizzly Bear”
• “Baddest Man Alive”