Hi, everyone. Buttonthony Shirttano, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of JACKBOYS 2.

What is the point of JACKBOYS? Or if you're really out of the know, what even are the JACKBOYS? Well, it's a collective of artists founded by writer, producer, songwriter, Mr. Travis Scott, and their inception came around a time when Travis was just riding such a high in his career, artistically and commercially.

I'm talking in the late 2010s because around that time, every year, his breakout commercial debut full-length Rodeo was just aging like fine wine more and more. His follow-up record, Birds in the Trap, while I personally didn't really like it, many of his fans still look back upon that project very fondly. Then in 2018, Travis's Astroworld record contained some of the biggest mainstream hip hop songs we've seen in the past 10 years. I mean, that is a record we still hear the influence of today on a lot of modern artists, regardless of genre.

So, yeah, after that incredible and impressive run, in less than five years, Travis had completely revolutionized the sound of trap music, of mainstream hip hop, and he was suddenly one of the most in demand artists on the globe. So, of course, with so much attention on your music and your brand, there's going to be some pressure to expand or branch out, find more ways to serve the massive audience that you've built. And JACKBOYS was Travis's way of running an all too familiar play to solve that problem: You're a big artist. You sign some other artists, you cosign them, you make music with them, you release their other music.

And with the connection and good faith and artistic vision Travis Scott had showcased up until that point in the late 2010s, he had a real chance, a real shot of doing something big and effective in the hip hop collective lane and maybe create something on the level of a Young Money or a GOOD Music or a Maybach Music or a No Limit or maybe even an Odd Future. For a moment, it seemed like he was really starting to gather the talent to make that happen. Not only bringing on artists who more or less reinforced the melodic, psychedelic trap aesthetics that Travis was known for, guys like Don Toliver, but Travis also managed to nab one of the most viral and exciting voices in hip hop to go viral in the late 2010s, too, Mr. Sheck Wes.

And while this wasn't exactly a full roster or anything like that, for Travis, this seemed to be enough to go on a bit of an inaugural JACKBOYS run and drop a seven-track project in 2019 that was heavily buoyed by feature appearances from Offset, Quavo, the late Pop Smoke, a Lil Baby was in the mix, too. Again, this project was very short. It didn't really give us a whole lot to go off of in terms of what a trademark JACKBOYS sound is or maybe would evolve into in the future. But with the way it was all being built up, it seemed like this project was just the start of many potential things to come.

Now, a lot has happened between 2019 and today, so much so I don't know if there's one thing we can pin the lack of overall JACKBOYS's progress on. Is it Travis being spread too thin creatively? Is it COVID? Was it the Astroworld disaster? Is it the lack of collective or label support? I don't know. I mean, the only notable thing to have really come out of the whole Cactus Jack label thing seems to be Don Toliver, who has really built a respectable solo career out of it.

But as indebted as Toliver is to Travis's endorsement, I mean, that guy just seems to be on his own wavelength and busting ass because he wants to. He's come out with more proper albums than Travis has in the past five years. Then there's Sheck Wes, who hasn't dropped a full-length album since 2018. And newer additions to the roster, such as SoFaygo, while he is definitely more active, for the most part, he brings to the table this combination of pop rap and rage that I just don't see as all that exciting in comparison with many of his contemporaries that operate in a similar lane. Then the latest, latest signee to the label, from my understanding, is Wallie the Sensei, who had a nice appearance on Kendrick's GNX. And while I do think he is a decent singer, I fail to see what he brings to the Cactus Jack brand.

So the JACKBOYS collective hasn't exactly been super active in the biggest way, to the point where it was surprising when we finally came to learn that we were suddenly going to get a follow-up to that original JACKBOYS project. And while, yeah, I did see a lot of excitement for the record here once it was announced, have we stopped to think why we're excited?

I mean, that first original JACKBOYS project really just came and went. Travis seems to have put little to no effort or thought into building up the visibility or the cohesion of the collective since then. Like even Kanye West and GOOD Music had Good Fridays. Odd Future and A$AP Mob showed even a little bit of collective spirit and togetherness when they were originally putting out their big group projects. I mean, for all we know, with JACKBOYS 2, these guys may have put this project together without even being in the same room.

So yeah, right now we just have this out of nowhere JACKBOYS release with Don Toliver really being the only person to prove, at least a little bit, the Cactus Jack label concept. And because of that, I'm sitting here thinking, Why should we be excited? Because even though we are getting more tracks on JACKBOYS – that is true, this thing is almost an hour in length – that doesn't mean that we're getting more growth since that original 2019 record.

Because for the most part, I think JACKBOYS 2 over here suffers from a lot of the same issues. In fact, going longer, I think, exposes new issues because on this thing, it doesn't really feel like JACKBOYS is much of a collective at all.

I mean, sure, there are some key crossovers here and there between Travis and Sheck, and Sheck and Toliver, and Toliver and Travis. But the majority of the cuts on this album, especially the songs in the second half here, just feel like cutting room floor and demo stuff that didn't make Travis or Don Toliver albums. Hell, the most stand-out moment from Sheck Wes on the record is a single that he dropped back in April, which now that it's here, I'm wondering if that song is even going to be on a future album.

But yeah, all that feels weird. Unless I'm the only person to have not gotten the memo that JACKBOYS now just means stuff we didn't feel like coming out with anywhere else. I thought it meant group, collective, but I guess it doesn't. It just means extra things that would be some of the weakest solo music we ever put out if it happened to land on, say, Utopia or the last Don Toliver record. Because there are a handful of words that come to mind when I think of the material on this album, some of them being nightmarish, annoying, filler, pointless.

Take, for example, the first full song on the project from Travis and Don, "Champagne and Vacay", which is nearly unlistenable throughout a lot of it because of these super loud, blaring, Waka Flocka Flame adlibs. Adlibs that I love and I think are awesome and are fucking iconic on his original classic tracks when he did them. But they just make no sense here in this glistening, spacy, low-key trap anthem. Plus, in the midst of the bars on this cut, there's a pretty weak Pusha T response, which there's been a lot of pressure on Travis to do, given that Pusha T threw some bars out at him on "So Be It". Why say anything at all? Why even broadcast the potential idea that you dropping this project might have something to do with that pressure by dropping this lyrics on the top of the record.

I guess I can sympathize with Travis wanting to get something legitimately memorable out early on the album, though, because was lyrically, he doesn't really fare well deeper into the tracklist. I mean, with the multiple bars about not giving a fuck on the next track, "2000 Excursion", he does genuinely sound like he doesn't give a fuck.

And while, yes, it is true that Travis has never been a top-tier lyricist, and I've enjoyed his music all the same, that is not something I look to his music for. Usually, he's able to make you look past that because he hops on otherworldly mind-bending, game-changing production or brings in a star-studded feature list where everyone is just on their A-game. But no such bells and whistles exist on JACKBOYS 2. To distract you from the fact that Travis, as the lyricist, even as a chorus writer on this record, is just okay. I mean, even on this track, the Don Toliver chorus that sounds tacked the hell on is ridiculously loud and just blaring over everything else happening after it. Meanwhile, Sheck Wes, who also appears on the track, sounds like a former shell of himself. He is just sleepy throughout this entire record whenever he does appear.

Now, there are some features to be noted in the tracklist here on JACKBOYS 2, but most of them are pretty disappointing. There's 21 Savage on "Kick Out", but he doesn't actually do anything on the song other than just lay down some adlibs and talk a little shit. And he does that throughout the entirety of the song, just putting you on the edge of your seat, anticipating, okay, he's still here. He's going. That verse has got to pop up at some point, which... I like a 21 Savage adlib as much as the next guy, but I usually like them because they coincide with a verse.

Going further into the track list, "Dumbo" feels like a Travis Scott demo. "MM3" from SoFaygo is mid as hell. Then there's "Valor", which I have no earthly idea what the hell the song is trying to do. Between its tense horror movie synth swells, groggy bass snare fragments, all of which don't really feel connected to Don Toliver's vocals on the damn track. Then on "Contest", SoFaygo pops up once again, but this time with Travis, so they could both collaborate on a very forgettable rage cut.

Going further, "Where Was You" is maybe one of the biggest shockers on the entire record because it features both Playboi Carti and Future, and yet it's one of the biggest snoozers on the entire record, the most significant surprise seems to be that there's a banjo in the beat somewhere.

Don Toliver's vocal inflections and bars on "No Comments" sound absolutely goofy. Again, feels like a cutting room floor cut, and it just gets worse from here with "Beep Beep", sounding like you're just getting some vocal and lyrical riffing over this very sporadic mess of a beat. "PBT" sees Travis Scott trying to land somewhere between Afro piano and dance hall with Tyla, who sounds great on the song, by the way, but Travis himself is engaging in some pretty awful and awkward singing. Meanwhile, the down pitch samples that serve as the backbone of the instrumental sound off and not really complementary to the singing on top of them. The instrumental just feels very murky and unfinished. I don't know why the hell this is seeing the light of day.

Even one of the best songs miraculously on the project, "Shine", doesn't go over without at least some hitch. Because while this track does actually feature some solid verses from Travis and Glorilla that both feature some very funny bars (love that Matthew McConaughey line, love that Travis Scott Flintstones bar), but there's also this Barrington Levy interpolation that goes over horrendously, which is so misshapen and out of tune. I don't think anybody would have put two and two together or connected the dots on it, if not for the fact that the title of the song is in reference to a Shyne song.

I'm not sure what else there is to say about this JACKBOYS project. It sucks. It's not good. It's embarrassingly bad. I feel like the only reason we are seeing this record is because Travis Scott can just do this. He can put out a project that is this low grade, this piss poor, this effortless, and throw it out under the JACKBOYS name and see little to no repercussions for it. Because as mediocre and as forgettable as this project is, nobody's going to tag how awful it is directly to Travis. Because it's not an official Travis release, even the most hardcore Travis fans do not have super high expectations for this thing. And again, most likely whatever solo record he does drop into the future, it's going to be far better than this. So even though it is bad, it's not like you could really hold it against him as a solo artist, per se.

But still, I'm just wondering if you're not going to put in the full effort it would require to make JACKBOYS a legitimately interesting music collective, why even try? Because there's just such a deep and exciting and awesome history of various rap labels and collectives out there that we can pretty handily use as a rule of thumb or an example to measure what JACKBOYS is doing against.

Two projects in, JACKBOYS continues to fail by just about every metric. There's not really any collective cohesion to speak of. The songs stink. Many of them sound unfinished or demo quality. The features are all right at best. There's not a damn thing that's memorable about it. Frankly, it's aggravating to see Travis Scott in a position where he can seemingly just give his fans anything and he'll be rewarded for it when it just seems very plainly obvious that not even a fraction of the work that went into Travis's worst records went into this, which is why I'm feeling a light 2 on this thing.

Anthony Fantano, JACKBOYS, Forever.