REVIEW: Jack Harlow's "Jackman." via Generation Now/Atlantic

I don’t have much knowledge on Jack Harlow and to be honest I highly doubt a white man is the way I should be listening to more rap music, but it was on my backlog, it was short, we’re here now. Something I like and notice about Jack early into this particular project is how he tells it like it is and I don’t mean in the way your racist uncle does. On opening track “Common Ground” he criticizes white kids from his own hometown in Louisville for adopting black culture while gatekeeping it all at the same time. He also attacks misogynists for defending abusers in “Gang Gang Gang” where Jack describes situations in which former friends had turned out to have histories of assaulting partners or even taking advantage of children. The song sends a message that no matter how close you are to someone when they turn out to have done real, permanent harm to others you kind of have to let them go.

“Blame on Me” pulls my heartstrings in a personal way. Here Jack talks about losing touch with his brother because of pain leftover from their upbringing. Even before hearing Jackman I had been thinking about my own siblings. I’m pretty estranged from my step siblings naturally but for my two biological brothers I sometimes think about where we stand with each other now. One of my brothers I had a pretty rough relationship with growing up but now that I live so far away we talk quite a bit. We talk a lot about music and records and things going on in our lives. On my youngest brother's side I sort of have this guilt. My parents used to tell me all the time that I was my brother’s favorite person and when I started transitioning and was masking we definitely grew a bit distant. I was way more depressed, it felt like he didn’t want to deal with it and now that I actually am a woman I don’t know how any of that pans out.


Anyway, we were talking about Jack Harlow. To be honest, this isn’t anything you haven’t heard. He doesn’t have this sense of corniness that white rappers tend to have, he’s just talking about real things from his real life and not about how he’s so mad that he’s so underrated. Jack even compares himself to Eminem on this album, which? Sonically? Yea he sort of is. Jack is a good rapper, not a shocking one and I walk away from this record at least with something to talk about.


Our rating - 7/10


Favorite Tracks

  1. Common Ground
  2. They Don't Love It
  3. Ambitious
  4. Is That Ight?
  5. Gang Gang Gang
  6. Denver
  7. No Enhancers
  8. It Can't Be
  9. Blame on Me
  10. Questions

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