Eddie Lee

A Necessary Evil

Eddie Lee is a Virginia-based emerging R&B, trap, and hip hop artist with a lot of potential. After our interview with the artist, we could tell the passion was there and how serious Eddie takes his artistry. We started paying attention to Eddie Lee when his track ‘Message In The Bottle’ started gaining some traction on SoundCloud, now with over 40,000 streams. The song showcases Eddie’s ability to find unique pockets with Don Toliver-type melodies over dope instrumentals. He shows his versatility in both singing and rapping very well, so we were excited to hear his sound develop on A Necessary Evil.

Eddie Lee tells us the concept of A Necessary Evil is about finding balance within life, and how that balance allows you to appreciate both the good and bad in your life. The intro, “From Dr. Scythe to Eddie”, starts off with a therapy skit capturing the initial awkwardness and eeriness of heading to therapy for the first time. The intro sets the stage for the journey that Eddie is about to take us on, and we have some mixed reviews of what we are hearing.

The project starts off with three upbeat tracks, “2 Sides”, “Broad Day”, and “Safe Space”. Our favorite part about the tracks is definitely the beat selection. We’ll be shouting out Eddie’s ear for beats quite a lot. Secondly, Eddie showcases his rapping ability that blends in with the current scene very well, reminding us of artists with larger than life sounds like Future, Travis Scott, and Don Toliver. Unfortunately, Eddie loses us a few times with misplaced singing runs and forced vibrato that we hear on almost every track. While it wasn’t our taste, feel free to formulate your own opinion.The project slows down leading in to songs like “Silence” and “Back Roads”, where we enjoyed the latter much more.

The middle of the 17 track album contains some b-sides to put on display more of Eddie Lee’s versatility. While we have some of the same criticisms about the singing performance, tracks like “Doing Me” featuring J.L.D._MasterMind is really nice to listen to. The track comes with a very catchy hook, sure to get stuck in your head. J.L.D._MasterMind brings a fire flow for the record and these two artists mixed very well on this. I must say, this track probably has the most replay value on the project!

Two more great tracks follow “Doing Me”, including “Too Myself” and “Condition (Interlude)”. This would have to be our favorite part of the album. “Condition” is a cool uptempo joint suitable for an interlude because it leaves you wanting more. Lee is FLOWING on this! The good production of this track is capped off with a cool intro and outro.

Final Review

 

 

First off, shoutout to Eddie Lee for releasing a well put together project with a consistent concept and theme throughout. We can appreciate the vision and artistry for sure. Eddie Lee’s rapping ability blew us away at some points; giving off vibes of Young Thug and Gunna with endless flows. His melodies were fearless, the artist is not afraid to take his vocals as far as they could go. But that proved to be a blessing and a curse. Eddie’s vocals do need to be honed in at many points throughout the project. As we mentioned before, some of the vocal runs and vibrato sounds forced and were even a little hard to listen to at some points.  One thing we would like Eddie to keep in mind is that less is more. With some vocal training and a trusted A&R close by, we believe Eddie Lee has a lot more great music under his belt. Check out A Necessary Evil below and let us know what you think.