Eyedea can rap (as his Blaze Battle Championship trophy proves). DJ Abilities is undoubtedly wicked on the cut. And whoever produced this shit’s got beats. Sublime basslines carry the rhythm throughout, but I’d rather hear Eyedea chop it up like Mike Zoot than his partner/mentor/main-influence Slug. He’s witty and constructing when it comes down to it but conceptually he’s tired. This ain’t wack but it can be exhausting and at times pretentious as hell. The Blaze Battle may of pigeon-holed this teenaged wonder, as a maniacal freestyling machine ready for any battle with fun raps loaded with a full clip, because he’s philosophizing his ass off to no end.
On “Void (External Theory)” Eyedea waxes himself off mid-song in this terribly fitting diatribe: “a lot of the time, humans as artists exist in projected state of falsehood, we’re either too close to our image to be objective in our perception or too far away to be subjective in any manner, this only widens the void that social conformity introduced to our souls at birth. And so I write. But I don’t write without the intention of objectivity or attention on the image but only as an unguided directional bridge between the several floating tone-structured realities present in space in time. See, I don’t write for the future, I write about the future for the present. I write with my past about the future for the present.”

Where’s my Chubb Rock tape? I need a give my head a rest. As does Eyedea who should stop taking himself so serious. He’s a limb on the tree of of Ras Kass which spurred its roots in the stumps of MC Ren and Rakim. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, but ultimately that should answer be left to the listener. Delve further as “Read Wiped In Blue” finds its format based in Slug’s immortal “Scapegoat” but nay as timeless. While “Big Shots” is innocent and fun-loving but loses itself with an uninspired hook.

Eyedea does indeed have raps. But on First Born his ideas don’t hit the stars as hoped; they stumble alongside the crowds of faceless new jacks and internet rappers hopelessly biting off each other for the gleaming moments to hear themselves ponder the meaning of their futile existence off beat and unoriginally. This isn’t bad but there are too many rappers out there that should of stayed being fans