In case you’ve not heard of him, Pablo is a 20 year old prodigy signed to the Young Billionaire Music imprint whose records are currently doing numbers. The talented artiste doubles as a singer and rapper, heavily influenced by the acts that rose out of the streets of J-town where he hails from. 4 months ago, Pablo released “Not The One” as the first single off her s debut project, an Afroblues medley that featured Psycho YP, a track on which he showed great promise. Fast forward to December 4 and he released his much anticipated debut project, a 15-track effort on which he showcases the different sides that comprises the artiste that is Pablo.
Aptly titled “Flight 234”, the project is indeed a journey through Pablo’s artistry. Rather than making a body of work aimed at cohesion, it’s more about Pablo showcasing his many abilities: freestyle rap, storytelling rap, trapping, singing, you name it. There’s a lot of versatility on display. That is not to say there is completely lacking at all in cohesion though, it certainly isn’t. The songs still flow into each other very nicely and there’s an element of continuity in the beats and lyrical themes (tracks 2,3 and 4 particularly feel like a three-part story). But it’s not the main focus. This project is more about showing off.
On songs like “Hallucinations”, “Midas Touch” and “Wait!” Pablo hops in the beat with the typical braggadocio of a rapper, flowing and dropping dope punchlines and worldplays. His lover boy nature is in full force on “Like Me”, “Be The One”, “Show You” and on “Not The One” and “Get Away” the lover boy is heartbroken. Introspective themes are explored on “Family” and “You Know”.
Pablo’s individual scorecard will read an A grade on the average. His flows are very sleek most of the times, doubts about his pen game die an early death courtesy of the many intelligent lines in display and his singing is more than decent on the tracks he attempted it. The few faults on the project don’t exactly stem from him. For example the beat selection could have been varied a little more, the similarity in them might make some listeners tire out towards the middle. There’s actually an improvement is the variability of the instrumental towards the end so maybe it’s the ordering of the tracks that needed work to keep the listeners interest at a 100% all through. Also some of the features don’t really complement him as well as is required, making them seem unnecessary. But those are perhaps minor faults and the positives by far outweigh the negatives.
