Action Bronson is Mr. Wonderful: A Review
Action Bronson is always nice, from the booth to the kitchen, to doing triple backs off of yachts with perfect form into the mediterranean sea. He never disappoints. Action Bronson is the type of dude that would punch you in the face on picture day or hustle you for a couple bucks in a 3-point contest at the park, but you’d forgive him for all of that anyway because he’s him. He has this New York, gritty, shit-talking charm that allows him to say whatever he pleases whenever and typically it’s hilarious.
Mr. Wonderful is technically his first official full-length debut, but it’s been a long time coming and he is far from a rookie. He brings out all the fam for Mr. Wonderful. He collaborates with all the day ones like his sidekick Big Body Bes and infamous Lo Life, Meyhem Lauren. Big Body makes his first appearance with Bronsolini on The Rising, where the two flex over a classic sounding New York beat. Bronson proceeds to accuse individuals of perjury, while Body discusses his current court case and how his lawyer plans to beat it. Big Body Bes makes another appearance on Falconry with Meyhem Lauren. When these guys get together they just make music sound fun, if you can avoid being offended by their vulgarity that is. You can really tell they are just some homies making dope rap music together.
Bronson also takes a surprising break from clowning on a couple tracks and gets a little more introspective than usual. On Terry, Action Bronson seems to flip back and forth between seriousness and satire, with lines like “Don’t sneeze on my shit, because fo sheez I’ma flip ya. Pedicured foot slide in the slipper, tryna to do the remix with Pitbull.” while on the hook he pleads for an individual not to hurt him again. On A Light in the Addict Bronson collaborates with the instrumentalist/production duo Party Supplies, a group that he is very familiar with as he has two collaborative EPs with them along with other miscellaneous material as well. The tone on this track is quite similar to Terry where in the hook he may be addressing a serious issue but you can never be sure because he seems to flip the switch into comedian mode in his verses.
Throughout the album there seems to be two reoccurring themes that an individual may have been able to predict if they were listening to Action Bronson’s progression throughout his mixtapes. The first being that on quite a few tracks, including A Light in the Addict, Brand New Car and Baby Blue with Chance the Rapper, Bam Bam tries his hand at actually singing. His singing voice is surprisingly pleasant, it’s raspy and nasally, but it has an odd charm, much like his overall persona. The other, is that a lot of the samples and overall vibes to a majority of the songs have a sort of psychadelic rock and blues sound to them. This sound is most notable on Easy Rider, City Boy Blues and Only in America. This type of sound works great for Bronson’s flow and I hope to hear more like-minded progression from my favorite rapper-turned-chef in the future…
“I nearly lost my mind, all a motherfucka got is time…
I nearly lost my brain, dealing with this motherfuckin’ pain.”
Action’s official debut is filled with all of the obscure sports and food references that you have come to expect from him, but the beats are also amazingly curated and he delves a little bit deeper in his lyrics than usual while still keeping some of the content light and humorous. He has really found his lane and stuck to it, even on his major label debut. Some people say Bronson is just satirical type comedy rap, but with this release he has proven without a doubt that this is something that he really does and his art is something he takes serious.