Artist: William Cooper
Album: God’s Will
Tracklisting:
01. Yesterday (God Frequency)
02. God’s Will (feat. Pace Won)
03. Something Ain’t Right (feat. Nature)
04. Grym Reaper
05. Never Fall
06. Blue Dreaming
07. True-n-Livin’ Nightmares (feat. Reef The Lost Cauze & Sticky Fingaz)
08. Stairway to the Matrix
9. Morpheus Prophecies (feat. Planet Asia)
10. Verbal Checkmate (feat. Killah Priest)
11. Holy Mountain (feat. Sean Price & Stoneface)
12. Secrets of Oz
13. The Cycle (feat. Ill Bill & Trife Diesel)
14. Volcanic Winter (feat. 9th Prince)
15. 7th Odyssey (feat. Timbo King & Killah Priest)
16. Channel Z
17. Zombieland (feat. Diabolic)
18. Marvelous Minds (feat. Big Twins & Big Noyd)
19. Closer to God (feat. Rah Digga)
20. MC Supremacy
21. Second Chance (feat. Stoneface)
22. Tomorrow
23. The Sequel
24. My Brother’s Keeper (feat. Stoneface)
25. Ultimate Spit (feat. Young Zee)
26. Illustrious Vision
Note:
I can’t think of an album in recent memory that was this long that maintained this much consistency as does God’s Will from William Cooper. When listening to this album you will notice a cohesiveness you typically don’t associate with a project of this length. In my mind that’s just one of the things that makes this album special. There are so many individual components that contribute to making this album a must listen so let’s take a look at some of those finer points.
Never Fall is really a song that hit me pretty hard on first listen. It is a somber cut but also one of emotional relentlessness. The vocal background and re-utterance of the words “never fall” are a chilling backdrop for Cooper’s stiff words of encouragement. I rarely ever quote an entire verse but I think this one is certainly worth it.
In the beginning of time I constructed the first rhyme / Chiseled on the walls of the Holy Mother’s insides / Falling diamonds from the sky / Revealed the mysteries and lies / Ancient tribes smoke peace pipes to my lines / David and Goliath / Doomsday vs the Mayans / Pyrex dreams tempt the mind of a scientist / Struggle with the pain that means blood stains and violence / Crack in the mirror reflecting my environment / Hollow liquor bottles that fed on the sorrows / Follow the trail of blood guts to a broken tomorrow / You can break the cycle or break bread with the angels / At the coroners table cuz some choices are fatal / A jury’s decision can have your whole life in prison / While the whole world moves on like ain’t nothing is missin’ / Prevail, never fail, never fall for the fiction / The war for your soul is when you battlin addiction / Reach for these two words when you feel like you slippin’ /…never fall…giving up is a sickness!
When an album comes equipped with twenty-six tracks there’s obviously a lot to choose from when doing a review but I think one things that becomes very evident early on is that William Cooper more than holds his own with the many guests that he features throughout the album. The track True-N-Livin features a phenomenal beat and the hook really makes it one of the more compelling tacks in an album that is chocked full of them. The track features heavy weights such as Reef The Lost Cause and Sticky Fingaz but it’s Cooper who sets the tone with his first verse:
A dope fiends poison/ More money and bad choices / Swimming in liquor trying to drown out the voices / My conscious constantly at war with the darkness / Inner demons haunting my dreams until they bleeding / Hunting down devils with twin glocks I’m squeezing / this verse is the vaccine keeping my people breathing / Light beams align the chakras of killers / Invite my enemies’ enemy to the table for dinner…
Another innovative track that may go over the heads of some people but is incredibly intelligent is The Secrets Of OZ. The introduction to the track alludes to the suggestion that The Wizard Of Oz was a theatrical euphemism for something more sinister. It’s a track that is extremely interesting and certainly nothing, even if I had remotely heard about it, had ever considered. I am not even It’s music like this that will have you go into the rabbit hole to seek more information.
This album is more than just boom bap beats and tough rhymes while that’s certainly inherent within the album. But if that’s all you see, you are certainly missing the point. This album is an intelligent discussion that presents ideas and embodies emotion. Cooper isn’t speaking on things just to rhyme in a vacuum. He is trying to get at you. He is attempting to part the veil that exists right before your eyes., and you can feel that with every bar delivered. Also, what’s important with an album of this magnitude is the sequencing and how the songs blend together and I think that was accomplished impeccably. Each song falls perfectly in line for an entirely well crafted project. The industry is full of the ‘flavor-of-the-moment’ type of artists that utter mindless vitriol, while Cooper maintains an artist’s integrity in keeping the music true to himself. Now you just need to give it a listen!
Hip Hop Dependency 