Two aspects of what Freeway does are generally wildly undervalued in my opinion. One, he’s so rarely smooth or charismatic that the occasional shows of finesse (see his fantastic verse on “Sun Don’t Shine” off the first State Property group album) can work like a dream. And two, he continues to improve as an evocative writer of what have been called emo-rap songs. One of the signal sample-clearance crimes of the last few years has been the vault to which legal issues have consigned “Goodbye”, which, for my money, is– without a single competitor, not “Mahogany”, not anything– the greatest rap love song. It’s… just… amazing.

I’m from Philly and I’ve never been the biggest Freeway/Cassidy/Jakk Frost/Beans/Gillie the Kid/Major Figgas fan by any means. They all sound the same after a while, except Beans was the first to break through, so I like him the most.

I respect Jeff’s opinion–he’s not impressed with Freeway. I’m personally feeling 2-3 joints off his album and I may end up buying it. However, there’s a whole squad of white music critics that didn’t start listening to hip hop until “Diplomatic Immunity” came out, and they’re dickriding Freeway because of his content and how “real” he is, since it’s cool right now for nerdy white guys who can’t get laid to praise dangerous trap stars.