Songs of Solitude - ‘She Already Decided’ Mixtape Review
By Carter Fife
While fans waited patiently for the release of Smino’s third record, the St. Louis rapper decided to drop a semi-surprise mixtape on Soundcloud this week. Titled She Already Decided, this project finds Smino synthesizing neo-soul and hip-hop elements seamlessly over 40ish minutes of casually-produced tracks. It is safe to assume this is at least a partial product of Smino’s time spent in quarantine, as fans received an email from him saying, “S.A.D. MIXTAPE OUT NOW! … I made dis shit at the krib fr tryna stay sane and Inspired as much as I can mane… REAL FREE MUSIC.. AINT NUN PERFECT ALL UNMASTERED N ROUGH RAW WTF EVER for y’all…”. A blessing to be sure for those of us who are going stir-crazy ourselves- thankfully it is hard to complain while safely in quarantine with new music.
For a project whose aesthetic is intentionally casual and ‘rough around the edges’, She Already Decided is an excellent showcase of not only Smino’s versatility - but his command of multiple styles of rapping and singing. On the project’s opener, ‘Fronto Isley’, Smino starts by singing over a classic sample from The Isley Brothers. On the chorus he says “I rap good, smoke good, fuck good, Look good, shit good”, and the next minute he’s delivering lines like “I made a call to bae and told her breakfast on the way / I'm so elated, pussy bald like Charlamagne”. This is just the first of many tracks on the project that make the listener realize that even Smino’s “ROUGH RAW” tracks have an incredible amount of thought and talent poured into them. An example of this is even seen in S.A.D.’s production credits - as though there were not too many hands involved in the tape’s creation, Chicago’s L10MixedIt (Acid Rap, NØIR, Telefone) is involved with every track.
Tracks like ‘Kotton Kandy’ with Sevyn Streeter and ‘Good Ol Julio’ are great examples of Smino thriving while singing in a variety of different styles. The former is a sultry hi-hat laden R&B track, whose rhythm and chemistry between Smino and Streeter work in tandem to make an infectiously catchy banger. The latter is a much more percussive and jazzy track that requires an insane performance from the St. Louis rapper. For almost three minutes, Smino continuously sing-raps over an intense drum and bass arrangement, and he does not disappoint. The point of these tracks, and their criticism, is not simply to show how versatile of an artist Smino is. What is present here is not just versatility, as to be versatile merely just implies a wide range of ability. What Smino shows on She Already Decided is dynamism - an adaptive mastery of multiple styles of both singing and rapping, and this is shown all throughout the project.
Some of the most stand-out moments on She Already Decided come from Smino’s remixes of other popular songs. On ‘Cabbage’, a remix of Megan Thee Stallion’s TikTok anthem ‘Savage’, Smino captures the true theme of this project while casually adlibbing “I'm having so much fun in this motherfucker right now”. ‘Blac Soda’, an interpolation of Baby Keem’s hit ‘ORANGE SODA’, has Smino delivering clever lines in a cadence that is just a touch too similar to Keem’s, though perhaps that is just a testament to Keem’s iconic flow found in the original track. Smino even gets the opportunity to remix Roddy Rich’s ‘The Box’ on ‘Jamie Boxxx’ towards the end of the project, though not before remixing his own track ‘KLINK’ with T-Pain.
One of the most notable qualities of She Already Decided is how irregular and subversive many of the mixes and beats found on the project are. ‘2MuchFronto’, ‘Gotta List’ and ‘Chips & Juice’ all occupy opposite ends of the hip-hop instrumental spectrum, but somehow Smino is able to dominate on each one. Even on the track ‘Already’, Smino graces listeners with a strangely hypnotic banger with transposed vocals edited past the point of recognition. Despite how utterly odd many of these tracks are, I cannot help but admit that Smino’s baby-voiced “Big gyal, rock the boat, oh baby! Big gyal, rock the boat, so crazy!” is equally infectious and enjoyable.
She Already Decided is a mixtape that will likely help hold fans over until the eventual release of Smino’s third record, or at least until the quarantine is over. With sixteen tracks to highlight Smino’s own talent in both rapping and singing, it is easy to get lost in the rapper’s wordplay, humor, and sheer weirdness. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a distraction, or at least something new as spring turns to summer.
Favorite Tracks
Gotta List
Already
2MuchFronto
Gotta List
Rating: 9
Stream She Already Decided Here:
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