Album Review: Gorilla Zoe- Don’t Feed Da Animals

15 years ago view-show 1,179,090

zoe-article_phixrWith plans to continue their dominance in 2009, the city of Atlanta preps for the release of Gorilla Zoe’s Don’t Feed Da Animals courtesy of Bad Boy South/Block Entertainment.

The member of the Boyz n da Hood quartet first saw a glimpse of success with his debut album Welcome To The Zoo back in 2007, which sold over 200,000 copies worldwide.

Hoping to double or even triple that amount with his sophomore effort, Zoe enlists the help of up-and-coming producer Drumma Boy along with fellow Southerners Rick Ross and Gucci Mane for his second at bat.

The patented ATL/Southern sound echoes through on ‘Untamed Gorilla,where Zoe expresses his sentiments on what can happen to you if you cross him the wrong way. Trumpets are the main focal point of ‘What It Is, as it features Ricky Ross.

In between his beef with “Fiddy,the former correctional officer manages to drop lines like, “Run up on me if you want/you won’t have time to make a call/get a burner to my dawg/you catch the case, I’ll break him off.”

It wouldn’t be a Hip-Hop album from the South without a song being overran by Auto-Tune, and the technique comes into play on ‘Dope Boy.

Doing his best impression of T-Pain and his newest pupil, Kanye West, Gorilla Zoe Auto-Tunes his way to explaining to how every girl needs a dope a boy, “Wake up in the morning like, what I’m gonna wear/could hit the mall/that ain’t really fair/I pull up to the mall in a black Murciélago/motor’s in the trunk, but in the hood’s a semi-auto.”

‘I’m Dumb’ is an attempt to coin the phrase and make it into something positive with Zoe using the stereotypical examples of having tons of money, selling more drugs than Scarface, and having cars with 26” inch rims.

The best produced track on the album is ‘Sh*t ‘Em On,with its perfect and unique use of a xylophone, but Gorilla Zoe drowns out the first half of the song by using Auto-Tune for the second time on the project.

‘Hood Clap’ is a tale of how Zoe is recession proof, and he re-iterates that notion with lines like, “Never go broke, man ain’t nobody stressin’/I ain’t never graduate, I can’t even spell recession.”

‘I Got It’ is another well-produced piece of music, but Gorilla Zoe once again chooses to go the Auto-Tune route, instead of letting his actual voice shine through, which denies the true quality of the sound. ‘Watch Me’ is the mandatory “swag song” where he lets the world know just how “swaggered out” he really is compared to everyone else.

Other songs Gorilla Zoe has to bare are songs like sexual exploits of ‘Talk Back,’ ‘Helluvalife’ featuring Gucci Mane and OJ Da Juiceman, and the Auto-Tuned songs of ‘So Sick,’ and ‘Echo.

Gorilla Zoe’s Don’t Feed Da Animals had the potential of being something different, but his failure to live outside of what everyone else is currently doing made the project sound more like other albums people might already have in their collection, (T-Pain’s Thr33 Ringz and Kayne West’s 808s & Heartbreak).

With that said, the project itself isn’t going to rank among the top albums of the year, and it probably won’t be near the bottom either. But the chance of it standing out in a small pond is less than likely—even from a gorilla’s point of view.

Rating 3.0

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