Detroit rapper Lazarus drops new single titled “Scalpel,” produced by Detroit’s own super-producer Denaun Porter. The song showcases the art of lyricism bring it to new heights as Lazarus delivers multi-syllable rhymes and flow schemes with the sharpness of a surgical scalpel.
I recently had the opportunity to listen to an advanced copy of the latest single by Lazarus. I must say, I was really excited to see him collaborating with Mr. Porter Of D12 this time. This isn’t a duo I thought I’d ever see, but I’m always happy when different players in the game link up. You never know what might result in accidental magic.
There’s definitely no shortage of clever bars and tricky flows. Front to back the track aiming directly at barheads. Still, after countless listens, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t struggle to understand what this track’s actually about. There’s many obvious attempts to tie things together by working in a lot of lyrics that reference scalpels in some way. Some of it is actually really clever, but a lot of it feels just a little forced. If you zoom out and look at the entire track, it comes off pretty unfocused lyrically. One minute, we’re referencing every trendy news story, next Lazarus just goes off on some vaguely braggy bars about himself. On paper, the track is very impressive if we’re just talking about wordplay and how sharp his pen is. When you line-up the track against everything else already available in hip-hop though, it’s really tough to find a reason to choose this first.
The lyricism is 100% here, there’s no denying that. Unfortunately there’s some trade-offs. One of them would be a be a lack of a strong hook. Instead of capturing the main vibe, the chorus feels more like a commercial break that I wish had a skip button for. Lazarus just repeats the same 5, non rhyming words a few times over as we wait for next verse. The hook is just flat-out boring and forgettable. It’s especially weird coming from me, because I usually don’t care about hooks as long as the verses “wow” me for whatever reason. Heck, some of my all time favorite tracks don’t even have hooks. I’ll use this analogy: If a tooth is causing you pain, either fix the tooth or remove it. Give me a 3 minute track with back to back verses if you can’t give me a compelling hook.
Like the song title suggests, this is a sharp track designed for a specific task. “Scalpel” doesn’t present itself as a versatile cut designed to be the massive hit that captures every type of listener. At the end of the day, it’s a track I wouldn’t mind throwing into a larger playlist and hearing it it comes up once in a while. Otherwise, I’m likely not going to remember this track or find myself going out of my way to look for it in the future.
Written By : CeaTee Reviews
Instagram @CeaTee_Reviews
Threads @CeaTee_Reviews
You can watch the new music video below:
