After various contributions on a number of albums, Dippa Dosanjh, releases his debut album, Reloaded. Previous albums he has appeared on include The Cover Up, The Slayers, Hey DJ, and most notably DJ Sanj's Pure Hip Hop Vol. 1. His tune on Sanj's album, the next episode, was one of the hits of the summer and probably influenced the decision to give North America's finest the opportunity to produce this album.
The first track of the album is Nach Di. From the start, this beat reminds me of Tigerstyle's Dhol Vajda. A good tune, but I expected a little more originality from Sanj. Nice bassline though!
The next song is Mango. This song has a garagey feel to it. The production is good and works fairly well. It flows quite well, unlike many bhangarage tunes coming out nowadays. A fairly good tune, not one for the dancefloors, but a chilled out bhangarage track.
The third song of the album is Desi Boli. This is a typical boliyan song. The production is alright, but the song isn't anything special - usual boliyan material.
Tu Ni Bolda is a song being recycled a bit at the moment. It's also featured on the Punjabi Hit Squad album. The lyrics are different, but the chorus is the same. A couple of versions is fine, but I hope this chorus doesn't get rinsed out by every other artist! It's quite a good tune. The production is traditional and works quite well with the song. One annoying part of the song is the samples Sanj is using, which are the same as those on Pure Hip Hop Vol.1
Ki Manda is the following song and uses Missy's One Minute Man beat. The production is quite good. There are also samples of DJ Kool thrown in as well. The lyrics are good. However one moan about the tune is the recycled sample he has used from his last album again!!! C'mon surely North America's Finest can come up with original samples, if not original beats.
The next track is Jawani. The production is again fairly good, and the singing is fine. However, it was at this point in the album that I realised it was all getting quite similar. The song isn't anything special and the lyrics are more of the usual stuff!
The final two tracks on the album are both remixes of earlier tracks. The first of these is Nach Di, remixed by Sound Ministry, some new boys on the Envy label. It's different from the earlier traditional beat. However I feel these lyrics are more suited to the traditional beat. Still, the production is good and I look forward to hearing some other stuff from these lot.
The final track is Dr Zeus' version of Desi Boli. This is better than the original version, but I feel Zeus didn't have much to work with. It's typical Dr Zeus production again. Don't get me wrong, I think High Life was one of the albums of the year, but Dr Zeus should start experimenting a bit instead of relying on just his old style.
Overall, it's a fairly good album, not amazing. There are 6 tracks, and then 2 remixes of the earlier tunes. I think it's quite difficult for an album not to get repetitive with the same singer and same producer. Maybe this is the reason a couple of the tracks were remixed, but I think Dippa Dosanjh may have been able to come out with an even better album if he used some of the other producers available to him, such as Stin and Swami. Still, overall I give the album 7/10. |