Cassie seems to have finally grown into her own, after suffering a few career stumbles early on. After guidance and direction from Bad Boy records, and no doubt her boyfriend, Diddy, her progress as an artist can be heard on her new mixtape, Rockabyebaby.
Nine out of the thirteen tracks on Cassie's new mixtape, Rockabyebaby, features either an in-demand rapper or an R&B hit-maker. This key element of the mixtape allows it to sound well-polished and produced, similar to the sound of an album albeit with a few redundancy issues. The production on this project allows Cassies' vocals to flow and mold almost too easily to the rhymes, hooks, and verses from all the guests. The best part about Rockabyebaby is that the features don't detract from Cassie and her lyrics, nor do they overshadow her; they flow meticulously into one another complementing each other like R&B and hip-hop should. There are a number of songs on the mixtape, chief among them "Numb" and "Sound of Love," that sound ready to become the hit club singles of the summer.
Rockabyebaby could be looked over by a majority of hip-hop heads, but stacked with verses from the likes of Pusha T to Wiz Khalifa to Meek Mill, it's worth a listen as if the guest features don't entice you, Cassies sultry vocals throughout the project will. The one track that does stray amiss from the rest of the mixtape is the surpassingly misogynistic and crass "Do My Dance," with highly suggestive lyrics that leave little to the imagination. It does detract from the overall mixtape's dance-able, R&B feel, but it's just a bump in the road.
Cassie and her producers have released a project that sets an example of how an infusion of R&B and hip-hop can work, with songs that range from the slow grind to the heavy bangers that make you want to scream and dance along with it. The lyrics might leave you wanting more but there's a hinting suspicion that Cassie will want all her emotions and feelings to go on the album while allowing the mixtape to dominate dance floors this summer. Rockabyebaby heightens the expectation for the singer's actual album, which is to be released later this year.
Take a listen, and download the project below.
