I don’t think there is anyone in RVA who has managed to maintain a more polarized opinion and reputation than OG ILLA.
I don’t think there is anyone in RVA who has managed to maintain a more polarized opinion and reputation than OG ILLA.
You either love him…or you hate him.
He’s not the best rapper. He’s extra confident, he’s often super opinionated, and his approach to records often seems a bit off. Oh yea, he doesn’t give a fuck. I almost left that out.
All that being said, for what’s its worth, Marijuana Made is his best work. DJ Gringo really came through on the production, and it seems he really has an understanding for ILLA and how he approaches music. He really pushes ILLA to step his game up on tracks like “Blurred” featuring Cooley (“Lord.”)
All ratchet moments aside, there are bits of substance like “Dear Tony” featuring Tez, which is dedicated to a friend ILLA lost. It reminds you, underneath and behind it all, there is an actual person here.
Songs like “CPSR2” -(Counting Paper Smoking Refer)- are as real as they are comedic and often toe the line between truth and jest. After all, I’ve lived that life before, I get it. If you haven’t, you may not.
What I do believe never should have made the cut on this one though, is the “Bless Me” outro.
Here we find ILLA on his 2PAC shit, literally. I respect 2PAC too much to ever consider doing something like that, so pardon my bias in regards to that record. So I guess the burning question amongst all this Marijuana smoke is this: does this project suck?
No.
Like I said, this is ILLA’s best work to date. What I suggest you ask yourself though this is not liking this man reason enough for me to judge him solely off the ignorance of your own uninformed opinion? If so, maybe you have some self evaluating of your own to do. Either way, I doubt OG ILLA cares, or ever will.
