“If you, guys, have ever been in a f**ked up relationship, this is the album that you gonna love.”
In the last two months, rapper Marcus Hopson, better known as Hopsin, has been dropping off singles from the upcoming album No Shame, such as “The Purge“, “Witch Doctor” and a controversial “Happy Ending“, which was removed for vulgar content.
Before the official album release on Friday, November 24, the artist is throwing a few exclusive secret listening parties for 100 of his fans in each of these cities: Amsterdam, London, NYC, Toronto, Denver and LA.
The pre-release event in London was held on November 17 at The Hoxton Pony club. Without his creepy iconic white colored eye contacts, but with a wide and bright smile, Hopsin presented the idea of the album, played a few snippets and spent an hour talking and taking pictures with his British fans, showing his friendly and open personality.
According to the artist, the foundation of the album was the situation with his ex-girlfriend Alyce, a make-up artist from Sydney. Accused of assaulting the woman, he was jailed and kicked out of Australia. “I got banned from a country, she was pregnant, had a kid, and I’m speaking on s***t“, said Hopsin, sharing his sorrow, that he can’t even meet his child.
The first snippets the rapper shared were from songs “I Must Be On Somethin” and “Twisted“, both proving that the artist is maintaining his dark rap theme and as he described, it’s “Hopsin just doin’ Hopsin s***t“.
He’s appreciated because of not being afraid to show the gloomy and desperate side of life, however he leaves some hope of seeing more light in the new project: “There’s a lot of darkness on the album but there’s a few brighter songs”.
No Shame will also include “No Words 2“, a sequel of “No Words“, which was written to mock rappers, mostly Future, and performed by Hopsin’s alter-ego Hash Brown.
The new track “No Words 2” is another song in gibberish, making fun of the incomprehensible lyrics in Future’s songs. “Hey, it’s about the vibe, not about lyrics no more, what feels good is good“, said the artist while presenting the track and assured that the “video for this is gonna be very very crazy“.
The more melodic and much brighter track “Panorama City” is about growing up in his hometown, teenage years and high school. The rapper explained he was trying to create something different, with a little west coast sound and with an “old school Dr.Dre, N.W.A. vibe“. The track features Joey Tee‘s vocals.
One of the moodiest from the new album will be “Black Sheep“, where Hopsin shares his personal thoughts about not fitting in the world among all the other white sheep. “It’s a serious song, just talks about how I feel like I never fit in with anybody, whether it’s a rap game, normal people in real life, whatever it is, I always feel like I was a black sheep, just like isolated in my own world…”
The last snippet that was shared at the event was from “I Wouldn’t Do That“, which Hopsin very briefly characterized as “another fun song… that’ll be fun to perform live.”
The next single that’s going to be released one day before the album, on November 23, is going to be “Ill Mind Of Hopsin 9” and the rapper made sure we can expect a strong music video: “it’s a very sad video and I was editing it and I was like, man this video is powerful, makes me wanna cry“.
With all the thoughts the artist shared with his fans that night, he made it clear that the album contains a lot of his honest feelings from his personal life. Judging by the loud and supportive audience, his fans are happy to know the real artist and to empathize with him. Great success in a career doesn’t necessarily mean a pleasing life, however, without all the tough experiences, there won’t be that much material for such great and staggering music.
The fifth Hopsin studio album No Shame will be released with the record label 300 Entertainment, and you can pre-order it here.
Here’s the full tracklist of the album:
1. Hotel In Sydney
2. Right Here
3. Twisted
4. Cute In A Suit (Skit)
5. All Your Fault (Remix)
6. Money On The Side
7. I Wouldn’t Do That
8. Black Sheep (feat. Eric Tucker)
9. I Must Be On Somethin
10. Tell’em Who You Got It From
11. The Purge
12. Happy Ending
13. No Words 2 (Skit)
14. Panorama City (feat. Joey Tee)
15. Ill Mind Of Hopsin 9
16. Marcus’ Gospel (feat. Michael Speaks)
17. Witch Doctor
Watch the latest music videos from No Shame below.
Words by Gintarė Lomsargytė
Great review! Thank you!