Steve 'Flash' Juon“Fuck opinions, yeah, fuck your feelings.” – Iggy Azalea
Well that’s an auspicious start to “Direct Deposit, Vol. 2.” Iggy really shouldn’t have gone there given the numerous controversies she’s courted. More to the point though — was there ever a Vol. 1? It turns out there was a year before this one (makes sense). If you try to find Vol. 3 though you’d better call Shawn Carter instead. This series was not a success. I think that’s fairly obvious given I write about music for a living and hadn’t heard of either installment until I started this review, but the much bigger problem is that a legendary label like Def Jam Records could’ve done so much better. The closest this installment gets to interesting is Dave East x A$AP Ferg on “Paper Chasin.”
To be fair there are other decent songs here. YG’s “I Be On” with 21 Savage isn’t the best thing either one has done, but I fuck with the minimalistic production. “Living Single” is a chance for Big Sean to team up with Chance the Rapper and have Jeremih sing the hook. It’s about as misogynistic as something with such a smooth crooner could be, but you’re going to head nod even if you hate yourself for doing so. Jeremih gets Sean to return the favor on “I Think of You,” but the inclusion of Chris Brown is far more questionable than anything said on the prior track.
The chief problem with “Direct Deposit, Vol. 2” is that there’s no cohesive theme holding it together, nor any real reason to own it given every song was featured on their respective artist’s own album. Even the official playlist on YouTube links to every other artist that was signed with Def Jam at the time… except for Azalea, ironically enough. You have to wonder what was being “deposited” as such — more money in Def Jam’s coffers for the streams it generated? They weren’t pressing and selling that many compact discs in 2017, but if this one got it I’d tell them it was a waste of money to do it. I’m not buying this to hear Vince Staples’ “BagBak” when I could (and did) buy “Big Fish Theory” instead.
In summation “Vol. 2” didn’t need to exist and it certainly doesn’t make me want to buy “Vol. 1.” A few decent songs paired with some truly forgettable ones (like Bibi Bourelly’s “Ballin”) don’t justify it at all. If you want to stream it fine but if by some miracle it gets a Record Store Day pressing just skip it.