Ex Google employee and independent rapper Hoodie Allen is set to take over the Hip Hop game by storm, it’s true Google it. The long island rapper released his début album “People Keep Talking” on October the 14^th. I’ve been a huge Hoodie Allen fan ever since he dropped his hit song “You Are Not A Robot” (He tweeted me back once!).

As a fan you see him grow from his past projects “All American” to “Crew Cuts” and now the album we have been waiting for “People Keep Talking”. Honestly before he dropped the album I was scared of what it would sound like. This was due to the singles he had released earlier in the year “Movie”, “Dumb For You” and “Act Your Age” where he sings mostly on those tracks. There is nothing wrong with singing but I love Hoodie’s smooth rap tracks like “No Interruption”.

So I was getting worried that the whole album would be lots of singing. Then he released All About It a confident catchy song that could be played on the radio. Oh did I forget to mention he features Ed Sheeran on it? The combination between Hoodie and Ed is magic. Ed Sheeran does like a sing songy kind of rap verse as Hoodie takes it away with the chorus followed by his slick raps. I’m ALL ABOUT IT BABY!

After the release of “All About It” my faith was returned for his album and I was not disappointed.  The first track on the album is “100 Percent Of Something”. A piano beat starts to play as Hoodie creeps into the song talking about selling out shows, selling albums and how his girlfriend might put out. It sort of seems like he’s looking back at his career and all the effort he has put in to get where he is now. It gave me chills listening to it, thinking about how hard he has worked over the past few years for this moment. The transition between each song is so smooth you would think it was made out of wool. And to connect some of the tracks he has little skits at the end of songs like “100 Percent Of Something”. Where he has people pretend to call his cell phone. Ed Sheeran isn’t the only person to lend his beautiful voice for the album. Manhattan singer Max Schneider who goes by the name MAX sings on both “Won’t Mind” and “Against Me”, two of my favourite songs on the album. His voice is so powerful it takes you away to wonderful land of dreams and unicorns. Maybe not but his voice is amazing and pairs well with Hoodie’s flow especially on the last song of the album “Against Me”.

 It was hard to find a song that I didn’t like on “People Keep Talking” but “Sirens” featuring Alex Wiley is that song. The beat is something you could hear Nicki Minaj on and Hoodie Allen is bragging hard on this track. It just didn’t work for me and seemed almost out of place in the album. I would compare “Sirens” to his song “Cake Boy” from the mixtape “Crew Cuts”. What I do love about this song is Alex Wiley’s verse. He goes in on this track taking the beat down with his dominating flow with lyrics like “Last night at the Trump Tower taking drunk shower. At the airport, they went through my bag and found a bunch of weed that was not ours”. Overall you will not be disappointed with Hoodie Allen’s first album “People Keep Talking”. It is by far my favourite project from him and to hear the growth from “You Are Not A Robot” is amazing. The album is full of fun upbeat instrumentals you would expect from a Hoodie Allen project. I give this album 4 golden unicorns out of 5. He has a website! Check it out. http://www.hoodieallen.com/