Steve 'Flash' JuonIn a previous review I established that KILLY had risen up from obscurity to become an established figure in Toronto’s rap scene with broader cross-border appeal. That hasn’t changed with “K3.” In fact despite the two KILLY albums I’ve covered coming six years apart, the rapper from the 6 seems to be the exact same man he was then.
“Ridin round the city with my top down
She ain’t wanna get litty ’til we popped out
Put my heart in quarantine, love lockdown
Drivin all these bitches so crazy, they doin laps now”
The good news (I suppose) is that KILLY does have a little Canadian flair to his bars, with cultural references like “Put ’em all on my back like Gretzky” sprinkled in for hockey fans. Those Canadian listeners might prefer to forget that Wayne left the Oilers for the Kings and finished his playing days with the Rangers. I have no doubt Canada still claims him as their native son but over 50% of his career was played for teams South of the border. I’m getting into the weeds on this though when there are still songs like “Addicting” to talk about.
“I can’t my tell myself stay awake
So hard to stay faithful when you be winnin
Had to learn to live with my mistakes
I turn my nightmares into some big dreams
I pray that it never goes away”
Actually… is there anything to talk about on this song? Unintentionally either KILLY drifted toward Drake or vice versa because their subject matter is almost interchangeable. Success is a bitch, it’s hard being rich, let me go flaunt, I can have anything that I want. It’s so hard for KILLY to resist the trappings of his good fortune that he had to trap about it. It’s hard not to yearn for the days when even mainstream commercial rappers had more to say, but that just makes me an old geezer yelling at clouds. There’s “No Saving” figuratively or literally here. It’s going to keep going until it’s gone.
It’s not easy for me to recommend “K3” but that’s true of so many albums like this. “So many albums.” That’s the thing innit? You can’t escape this being the predominant sound of anything that succeeds even a little bit in today’s rap world. It’s why artists like Open Mike Eagle talk about what it truly means to be independent — to not sell your soul to make something personally meaningful even if that purposefully limits the reach of the music. I’d like to see KILLY become Drake but only in reverse and go back to a point in Drake’s career where he still cared about the music he made, not the zeroes he made from it.