going into this album, i didn't know what to expect. i knew .paak by way of tokimonsta first; he captivated me with his feature on her song realla. however, even though i fully enjoy that song, i never sought out any of his own music. that was back in 2014, but fast forward to late 2015 and his name emerges again as a primary contributor to dr. dre's comback album compton. every song he featured on was one of the highlights of the project and i'd go as far to say that without him, the album would be awfully bland. continue forward to the present day and malibu keeps the energy he brought forth with dre and mixes it with textures that would fit well on kendrick lamar's to pimp a butterfly as well as flying lotus' you're dead! albums.
.paak is great at switching up his flows, the most obvious being his ability to sing and rap well. his vocabulary is also something to be noted, i really enjoyed how he said things even if i wasn't feeling the subject matter with the same passion. it's a very mellow vibed project, a bit too long though. when you look at each individual song, there's really nothing wrong with any of them, but as a whole, some of it runs together. nevertheless, this is a strong mainstream debut and i do hope to hear more from him in the future.
favorite tracks: am i wrong, parking lot, room in here, light weight
