Released online and available for free, this all-Asian mixtape that sounds disappointingly all-American. Featuring US rappers Jimmy Boi, 450 Gang, Gookstaz and Gumby aka Pryce, for better or worse this is a decidedly ‘gangster’ affair; all money, drugs, guns and motherfuckers.

The beats are strong but indistinct from 90% of FM hip hop and it’s hard to keep them from bobbing under into background music territory. The only departures from the ultra-modern slick beats is the mid 90s west coast slingback stylings of 450 Gang and the Don Nanthavongsa rock rap dirge. Work Hard Play Hard could be seen as important in telling the untold stories of the Asian gangsters running drugs in the US. Unfortunately stories about drug dealers and drive-bys generally sound the same on record, whether it’s told from the point of view of blacks, whites or indeed, Asians. “All I wanna do is smoke blunts and get high / All I wanna do is fuck bitches all night,” croon Gookstaz on the one genuinely unlistenable track, ‘The Way That It Iz’. It’s as boring a couplet as it would be whoever was saying it but is telling here as it’s a clear indication the US Asian rap scene could be as stunted as our own is here in Hong Kong.

Work Hard Play Hard Mixtape Volume 1 is a solid rap album that’s above par and best of all, free. Just don’t expect any revelation or innovation from the disappointingly insignificant Asian element.

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