Go ahead and give Damian Lillard aka Dame D.O.L.L.A. the title now. His The Letter O album competes with some of your favorite rapper’s best work.
Damian Lillard turned heads last year when he killed a freestyle over Jay Z’s “Dead Presidents” on Sway In The Morning. Since then he’s whetted appetites with singles and other freestyles on social media. Now, he’s released a proper album and it’s pretty dope.
The album rides like a solid effort from a serious new rapper, not a bored NBA player. His approach actually makes the songs about living a professional athlete’s life relatable. In the past ballers like Deion Sanders let you know how much more money they had than you, and even now guys like Iman Shumpert remind you how fly they are because of their position. But Dame keeps it very level-headed rapping his true feeling about getting snubbed from the All-Star team to addressing cats who want to be like LeBron but won’t work to get there. When it comes to actual skills, he is far better than any athlete that ever touched a microphone. Sure, Shaq managed to make some entertaining songs and even a classic with “Can’t Stop The Reign,” but Dame sounds like he’s doing on every song and you can tell he really takes this seriously.
He also landed some key features from Lil Wayne, Juvenile, Jamie Foxx, Marsha Ambrosius and Raphael Saadiq.
Listen for yourself below. You will have a favorite song of the day on this project.
