KILLY Goes Back To The Basics With “LIFE I CHOSE”

We feel that KILLY operates at his highest level when he’s tackling dark and grand instrumentals. It feels like every time we discuss a new release, we bring up his K3 EP from last year. But we feel it’s necessary because it contains some of his most potent cuts. He was rapping over some truly haunting, almost gothic and alien-like trap beats with “Same Energy” and “Cut Em Off” being some prime examples. However, after that mini project, we felt that KILLY was sort of losing some steam. “LIFE I CHOSE” with Dom Corleo and “POP 2” with Fourfive came across as some of his more generic releases. Those cuts, along with “FR33ZING” and “REAPER”, land on the latest effort from KILLY, LIFE I CHOSE.

The latter duo we just mentioned were slight improvements, but nothing compared to some of the others on this 15-song tracklist. KILLY’s seventh project has a pretty strong start with “POISON”, which sounds like you are about to enter a war alongside him thanks to the epic horns laced into the beat. “AGILITY” keeps the momentum going with a glitchy melodic rap instrumental, which then transitions into a guitar riffing outro. Their may be some HARDSTONE PSYCHO inspiration on it, but it works still. As for the rest of LIFE I CHOSE, there are plenty more enjoyable moments like “HUH HUH”, “BLACK OPS”, and “GRAVITY”. It may not be consistent in terms of quality, but KILLY does sound confident overall, as we feel he’s back in the realm of rap where he can dominate at times.