Albums Boldy James x Harry Fraud - BRICKtionary (Discussion Thread)
- Thread starter IronFist
- Start date
Spotify added
The Villain
Superstar
shyt is niiiiice
Fraud trys to imitate alcs style on this, but He nowhere near His level
Rabies is that vintage Boldy
Playaz Eyez
Veteran
Finally on streaming 
Heavy_Handz
Superstar
Harry Fraud been producing so much fire over the years he gets my respect. His wave is totally different than Alchemist with the way he produces for rappers he works with. He is super nice. I canât believe Iâm saying this but over the last couple years Iâd put Harry Fraud right with Alchemist.
Fraud was never on the drumless Wave. He trys this shyt with boldy now cause bo Jackson is a Classic.
I think he did great on this project imo.
Playaz Eyez
Veteran
Ainât ever heard a Harry Fraud beat and thought âheâs trying to sound like Alchemistâ 
"For a large swath of the 20th century, the milkman was the definition of dependable, delivering sweet dairy to the homes of Americans on a weekly basis, with the clinking and swishing of glass milk bottles arriving at your door like music to your ears. With the latest release from Boldy JamesâThe Bricktionary, a collaboration album with producer Harry Fraud and his third full-length album on DSPs of 2024âitâs hard not to think of the profession as a fitting analogy for the Detroit rapper. The oft-overlooked artist has remained a beacon of stability for street rap for more than a decade, showing up multiple times a year to weave morbid fairy tales with a deft touch. You can almost set your watch to Boldyâs tense ruminations about the perils of drug dealing and somber vignettes about consequences, or his preemptive âWhere we at with itâ and â227 ConCreaturesâ utterances, arriving at your doorstep once a quarter.
A couple years ago, Boldy laid down a gauntlet for himself in an interview, saying, âIâm really just like one of the coolest kids in the schoolyard. So I donât feel like I can ever oversaturate the market as long as itâs a quality product.â The Bricktionary is a continuation of an astounding run of brilliance, ensuring that his claim remains uncontested. Arriving like a victory lap, the grandeur of Fraudâs production provides an intoxicating foil to Boldyâs steely honesty and delivery. Blanketed by manicured and ever-evolving loops, Boldy wields his blunt bars to take stock of his embattled ascension with immense clarity.
Boldy has long treated his projects as full-length exercises with a singular producer. And while The Bricktionary doesnât reach the heights of his best collaborationsâlike Penalty of Leadership, his 2024 album with Nicholas Craven, or The Price of Tea in China, his 2020 opus with The AlchemistâFraud and Boldyâs chemistry is just as potent. Where Craven and Alchemist often craft arid production landscapes, Fraudâs tracks are markedly busier. An airy 1980s Brit-rock sample opens the floodgates on âShadowboxing,â granting space to electric guitar shredding as Boldy makes offhand Chappelle Show and Police Academy references. While âSpeedy Gonzalesâ isnât particularly dense, composition-wise, itâs engaging enough: The blistering drumbeat and elevated BPM make it feel like it should be in the background of a 4-star basketball recruitâs highlight tape. Fraud doesnât reinvent the wheelâloop-based samples rule the land, stretching and extending through vocal chops, chord progressions, and swelling percussive movementsâcrafting a realm that feels natural for Boldy.
On The Bricktionary, Boldyâs poise doesnât feel a hair out of place among Fraudâs increased entropyâeven on more mainstream-leaning collaborations like the standout Tee Grizzley-assisted âCecil Fielder,â where thereâs no question about who is wielding control. Boldyâs superpower has always been making minute phrases feel monumental, packing sage wisdom on mortality and precarity into his street chronicles. âThis street shyt open game/One minute you him, the next minute you right back on your knuckles,â he raps with trademark assuredness on âPillar to Post,â keenly aware of how quickly shyt can flip on a dime. Reflection has long been a hallmark of Boldyâs raps, but as he continues to distance himself from the traumatic aftermath of devastating car crash, his range of recollections expands to put his entire journey under a microscope.
Boldyâs level of evocative detail is extraordinary, constructing sprawling worlds from his memories of Detroit in a matter of seconds. Specificities bubble to the forefront of Boldyâs mind like intrusive thoughts: linking with affiliates on street whose names you could only recall if youâd had your own feet planted in them, needing to be convinced not to eliminate a rival on his way to the top, seeing visceral images of bullets going through backs and out of stomachs, and sensing a lie when he hears minute changes in vocal pitches through a phone. On âHarvey Grant,â it feels like heâs introducing you to his entire family tree while doing drops off at the local Target and Home Depot, finishing with a prayer request: âForgive me for my sins and all the evil in the hearts of men.â
Boldy and Fraudâs technical brilliance on The Bricktionary is direct and precise, not overcomplicated, and it allows their respective production and writing styles to fit like puzzle pieces. This kind of no-frills approach leans on intrinsic quality and dependability, not on bells and whistles and leaps into the stratosphere. Closer âFish Greaseâ rambles with a peaceful vocal chorus that could soundtrack an ascension to heaven as Boldy takes the listener through a startlingly frank year-by-year catalog of his close-calls and epic triumphs. âRemember grindinâ in the rain, nights when it was pourinâ down/Now Iâm in the Range hydroplaninâ, work whiter than a dinette napkin/Hood call me Sir Brick Van Exel a.k.a. Mr. Pyrex Chapman/Clio banginâ off the lilac, phone slappinâ like a telethon,â he beams with understated satisfaction. Itâs true that by most estimates, the milkman began to disappear from public view in the 1960s, stymied by the proliferation of suburbs, grocery stores, and refrigerators. But in Boldyâs delivery, you can almost hear a knowing wink, as if heâs certain his brand of magnetism will never go out of styleâno matter how much things change around him."
Boldy James / Harry Fraud: The Bricktionary
