Somewhere inside of Tory Lanez’ identity crisis, a good artist waits to emerge.Born Daystar Peterson, the Canadian-born rapper/singer released his first mixtape in 2009 but only recently gained visibility with his current single "Say It," the Brownstone-sampling single that has rounded the corner on 35 million YouTube views. In the same vein as "Say It," his new mixtapes Chixtape 3 and The New Toronto offer a combination of R&B’s current, dreary "New Jack Sleaze" sound (of which Ty Dolla $ign is the current mayor) and obvious nostalgia bait (particularly of the '90s). In both, you can hear the wheels and gears of a talented individual trying to shape himself into something more consumable and familiar to general audiences as though he’s simply another manifestation of a record company business meeting.
Chixtape 3 loosely acts as a concept tape about Lanez’ girlfriend, Jalissa, and his newfound infatuation with her best friend Keisha. It’s a showcase for Tory Lanez the singer, something he’s very good at doing. The problem is he doesn’t actually have anything to say. After years of Drake-wave and clones like Bryson Tiller and PARTYNEXTDOOR beating the sound into the ground, it’s hard to have patience for another moody, emotionally distant piece of one-note R&B dystopia. The brightest moment on Chixtape is "Juvenile (Freestyle)," in which Lanez rap-sings over Juvenile’s "Slow Motion." Nothing particularly interesting is being said, ("Shorty when we meet, gotta fuck for real/ Took the TTC just to get the whole meal/ And we used to fuck, girl it was so trill/ You remind me of Monica, you was so real") but he sells you on it anyways, riding the instrumental with a quivering, confident sing-song. It’s infectious, even as you become aware of the dullness and grossness of the lyrics.
About those lyrics: Lanez has a disturbing tendency to conflate lines that surpass aggression and tip into assault ("Now shawty I'mma take it, if you don’t give it to me," from "Juvenile (Freestyle)") with "swagger." Aggressively dehumanizing women even while serenading them is nothing new in rap or R&B: The Weeknd and Ty Dolla $ign, arguably the new gold standards in the current sound Tory Lanez is chasing, have been just as crude and disrespectful. But Lanez doesn’t have half their talent to make you forgive him. His star power, such as it is, shines in sparks that can barely carry your typical mixtape, much less one with such uncomfortable lyrics.
The best moments on either tape come when he chooses to sing: He seems the most comfortable on songs like "Them Days," off New Toronto, when he kicks back into crooning about sex with ex-girls rather than the damaged-puppy rapping he spends so much of the tape committed to. It makes you wonder why he doesn’t just commit to that aspect fully. Also, for a Gangsta Grillz tape, DJ Drama makes no impression. Most of the time, you completely forget that he’s there; none of his usual overbearing bombast and record rewinds show up over the tracks, making you wonder whether the fanfare is an extra fee rappers need to pay for.
Despite all this, Tory Lanez does have a buzz going, and it feels like a missed opportunity that neither of these tapes offer anything more than reconstructed pieces of what’s already popular. Lanez has a great voice that appears in glimmers; on "Say It," his voice is full of vulnerability and a confidence that allows him to stay afloat the easily-recognizable Brownstone sample instead of drowning in it. The New Toronto closer "Letter to the City" is stripped of the theatrics and eager need to impress radio, and exhibits a competent rapper trying to be heard living in a city increasingly being crafted into a hub of Drake impersonators. Competency may seem like a low bar, but for now, it’s the best thing going for an artist with a lovely voice and absolutely nothing to say.
