Release Date: 20 November 2025
Song Count: 15
Rating: 7.6/10
Description:
(Note: Oh hey, 69th post. Nice.)
From the same particular hip-hop and rap scene as the artist and album that started it all for this blogsite project is the most recent drop of rapper and music artist SSJ DAKI, who has come to deliver an entire assortment of rap music spanning across all kinds of possible ways tracks of the genre can possibly take. Only his second full album release and having only been active since the beginnings of the 2020s decade, Daki may be a relatively newer face in the world of music, but with his clean and satisfying flow when rapping as well as his choice in beats and tracks to rap on and people to associate with in the industry, the artist has already made a name for himself and shown lots of potential.
Practically every track within HEAVEN ON EARTH, especially in the first two thirds, experiments with a different kind of hip-hop tune, consistently swapping around between autotuned, slower and rhythmic or more aggressive forms of rapping from both SSJ DAKI himself and the guest artists brought on for several of the songs, as well as a massive difference in backdrops, beats and samples that are being rapped on top of, both modern and old-school sounding, with too many particular styles to name. It's bordering on impossible to predict where the song following the next one will go, except for one thing: Daki is almost guaranteed to make a showing with his legitimately credible rapping skills and often some kind of other trick up his sleeve to make a track interesting and fun to listen to.
This lightning-in-a-bottle kind of effect held up throughout most of the album is rather lost and faded off by the time the last batch of tracks roll around (obviously with exceptions as well). A lot of them fall into the pitfall of lacking traits to differentiate them or otherwise simply lacking, as best described to my ability, a particular "oomph" or feeling that could potentially make them hit much harder than they currently do. This is less to say about the inherent quality of these songs in terms of production or whether the rappers and artists are giving it their all or not, and moreso a critique based on personal enjoyment and beyond mere rationality.
Overall, though, SSJ DAKI and his companions have very much delivered with HEAVEN ON EARTH, as it is a solid package of hip-hop music that practically anyone can enjoy in some capacity with how wide-spanning it is. Hopefully me casually planning on streaming "TO HELL WITH IT" countless times in the upcoming days and weeks to come will finally be a showcase against any potential hints of a bias against rap music in any way based on the lower ratings of most other rap albums on this blog. Daki has proven that the mold of being "just another indie rapper making boring songs everyone has heard already" very much can be broken with enough determination to do so, the skills to achieve it, and creativity to go beyond in the field.