Review: ‘Just So You Know’, A2 Deserves His Accolades

As we’re moving into a world that’s dealing with the aftermath of a pandemic, A2’s drop of ‘Just So You Know’ couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Everything about this 11-track LP delivered by the South London native, can be best described as post-apocalyptic and considering the eclectic choice of production and beat selections, there’s no doubt that listeners will naturally be able to distinguish his sound, from any other on the scene.

There are cruddy tracks like the fiery opener ‘Akolades’, ‘Lavish Freestyle’, and ‘Don’t Change’ (featuring Fee Gonzales), that are the definition of a bad-boy persona packed into a versatile flow and sickening pen game, which fit the pumped up instrumentals driving these tracks, like a jigsaw piece. In contrast, the dreamy sonics delivered in ‘Torondon‘, ‘Ideal’ and ‘I must admit‘ are the epitome of sad girl/sad boy hours, and something about their qualities can leave you reminiscent of 2014-16 PARTYNEXTDOOR.

In ‘Moon N Sea’ and ‘Soundz’ A2 laced romance into his rap, perfectly, whilst balancing that out with the right levels of slow-jam traits – fundamental to the RNB genre – whereas a more chaotic approach has been applied to ‘No Rush‘ (featuring Etta Bond) and ‘Midsummer Misery’, given the distortion in their tempo’s – creating anthems perfect for a warm, late-night drive.

Bringing in Etta Bond and Fee Gonzales as features, sprinkled in the right amount of artist chemistry that further fuels the electric aura present in the project, and given the unique spin A2 has applied to all of these songs, and their ability to trigger goosebump formation – that’s how he’s intentionally separated himself from the rest.

Consistency in the underlying theme that runs throughout this body of work is another quality that shows how the rapper knew what he was setting out to do when creating this LP, and it adds excitement to the alternative nature his audience will gravitate to.

It goes without saying that credit should be given, where credit is due and if you didn’t get the memo already: ‘Just So you Know’, A2 deserves his accolades.