Charles Hamilton's Well This Isn't Akward (Winner Takes All) Mixtape: A Review

Charles Hamilton 's latest mixtape Well This isn't Akward (Winner Takes All), is a follow-up of sorts to Charles' earlier, excellent mixtape, Well Isn't This Awkward, and, as usual eschews accessibility for introspection, exploration, and experimentation, with generally pleasing and often confusing results. Unlike other artists, Charles' seems to craft his records to work together to create an atmosphere, a mood, a message. So you may not find a crossover record; but fans may know better than to look for one. In this case, the mixtape seems to loosely follow the narrative laid out in the intro track Dr. Intricacy Presents Cinematic Hallucinations, a sort of Henry Milleresque (first person, non-linear) reflection on a narrative about a fictionalized Charles Hamilton dating an old flame, while a (Phillip) Roth-ian double of Charles Hamilton dates a socialite. It is an interesting premise, but often runs afoul of the dangers of first person stream-of-conscious: wavering focus and repetition. Where it is sharp, it is sharp, such as on records like Gameday, a weird inversion of the current wave of swagger records produced by rappers en masse, over a raucous, bass-heavy beat (that might otherwise make a good down-South club record), with Charles crooning:

"I keep looking at my insecurities, all of my insecurities, and it's like they keep talking to me, I swear they keep talking to me. And they saying, you ain't ready for a bad b-ch, a bad b-ch. (Who?)" (Repeat 4x)

on the hook. It also works on Media Takeout, a more cohesive take on one of the elements of the narrative. Other places it is a bit pedestrian, such as Humble Beginnings, which is light and insubstantial, with a mumbled hook that may be unclear. And in yet other places, it wildly veers off course, such as on Good Guy Goes Off, a battle rap record, with a pretty direct shot aimed at Jay-Z, in yet another (late) response to the veteran's D.O.A. (Death of Autotune) off of his critically acclaimed The Blueprint 3 record (read review). Why? Who knows? Maybe he's jealous of Jay-Z's proximity to Rihanna, given his relatively well-known crush on her.

The narrative ends with three alternate endings, reflecting the three possibilities Charles Hamilton forsees to his predicament, monkhood, polygamy, or monogamy. In Case I End Up Alone, reflecting the first choice has Charles spit a bunch of blistering bars aimed at haters, dedicated to his art. In Case I Get Them Both features Charles reveling in lust. And In Case I Get Only One, is a relatively straight forward sung ode to the one he gets. The first two songs are by far, the strongest on the entire mixtape. Here (and even on Good Guy Goes Off) is where he is strongest; the directness and relative objectivity of these songs could have been infused throughout this mixtape and strengthened it as a whole. As it is, it's another solid entry into Charles Hamilton's considerable mixtape catalog. Here's to hoping, at some point, he turns his considerable talent towards crafting an album infused with both creativity and accessibility, like B.o.B. Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray(read review). Because, unfortunately, most people will not hear this last raft of good music from the youngster.