From the sixth to the sixteenth in January of this year, 35 artists and 27 producers were invited to come together and create a collaborative album. This album would be the third in a series of albums released by Dreamville, the collective led by J. Cole. Artists came from far and wide to join in Atlanta that resulted in this eighteen track effort. Over 100 songs were recorded in those ten days, most of which will never be heard by the public.
But what has been released is an album that shows off the best side of today’s rap game.
Bringing artists together to collaborate is what music is all about and the Dreamville team did a spectacular job of bringing everyone in.
Here are our top 5 tracks off of ROTD III…
“Under the Sun”
The opener of ROTD 3 gives a preview of a few of the different recurring vibes that are showcased throughout. Clean production, immaculate verses, catchy hooks, and unexpected collaborations. For this one, Cole brought along Lute and DaBaby for a really dope track. Fit with a gospel sample and some real hard 808’s, producers Pluss, Christo, and Nice Rec were able to give the artists really clean production to work with. It was even good enough for King Kenny to come along for a short chorus. Although teasingly short, Kendrick adds a lot to this track. Arguably spitting the hardest verse on this one, Lute is a special talent and has a great past offering on ROTD II, “Still Slummin’.” Look out for him in the future, hopefully, some more solo work will be coming soon. Even Charlotte-native DaBaby wanted to hop on track no. 1. With yet another stellar verse here, he’s proving himself to be a very versatile young talent.
“Down Bad”
They really couldn’t have made this track any better. As an avid Nudy fan, I’m ecstatic he opened this track up. He’s able to give the track bounce before the main production starts moving. Producer Pluss utilizes the perfect sample of “Insane in the Membrane” by Cypress Hill and gives plenty of room for five outstanding verses. The song just keeps rolling along and I highly doubt there’ll be any breaks in the moshing if they ever get to performing some of these tracks live. They structured this song well, the order of the features flowed well with J.I.D offering the hook between each.
“Swivel”
To me, Earthgang is the most exciting duo in today’s rap game. This shows the wide spectrum of vibes on this album. Johnny Venus has a really interesting and unique style and it contrasts well with his counterpart, Doctur Dot. A simple, catchy hook lays the foundation for this track while both artists throw their respective verses in. The pair rhymes about being cautious, advising listeners to “keep your head on a swivel.” They’re able to create an eerie yet groovy track.
“Rembrandt… Run it Back”
Both of the two-part tracks were pretty spectacular. On this one, “Rembrandt” features a really cold beat. Christo had his production all across this album and he’s got some real talent. Back to back verses from J.I.D. and Cole complement each other well. Cole’s storytelling vibe continues on this track with some real confident spitting. He gives off quick punches that jump around the off-tune bell that keeps this track going. Then… Hi Vince! He jumped in the booth to give us some trappy FM! vibes with “Run It Back” which splits this track up well. Two aggressive songs that work together well.
“Wells Fargo”
Near the end of the Revenge documentary, they show this masterpiece of a song being cooked up. The vibe of those sessions was captured well in the documentary and it was really special to see how dope making this project, and more specifically, this song was. Johnny Venus, a recurring highlight on this effort, absolutely spazzes on this track. Guapdad 4000 also has a great piece here. He was all over this project, throwing in melodic hooks and hard verses on tracks such as “Costa Rica” and “Don’t Hit Me Right Now.” Before them showing this track in the doc, Ibrahim, Dreamville manager, says, “We’ve got to set a tone, we gotta let everyone know what it is.” They did just that with this gem of a track.
Album Stream: Listen to ‘Revenge of The Dreamers III,’ a Dreamville Compilation
Stream Dreamville’s ‘REVENGE: A Dreamville Film’ Documentary on The Making of ‘ROTD3’
