Columbia Records, a Division of Sony Music Entertainment, 2021
Lil Tjay makes a couple of things abundantly clear on his sophomore release, Destined 2 Win: he loves to croon over similar-sounding piano loops about a limited number of topics, and he thinks that he’s bound to take over the rap game. The result of these two characteristics being put together on this album is an overly-confident and underwhelming body of work. If Destined 2 Win is his essay, the first two tracks, “Destined 2 Win” and “Born 2 Be Great” are his thesis, but he fails to provide any sources throughout that back up this bold claim.
Destined 2 Win’s track list is stacked with 21 songs, finding Tjay alternating between love songs and attempted bangers about his come-up, and the transitions between them are rarely smooth. On the latter, he uses these songs to gloat about his imaginary status in the rap game as one of the big-shots, but only a couple of them stick out as highlights. His flow and delivery often come across as lazy and uninspired, resulting in his use of autotune sometimes sounding like a kid who you leave alone to experiment with the autotune app. Most of the tracks on the album are solo offerings from Tjay, but he benefits greatly from the few guests who do appear, as they provide some much-needed energy to the album.
Hailing from the South Bronx, obviously Lil Tjay has already attempted his shot at the New York drill scene. He’s dabbled in that style of hip-hop since the beginning of his career, but he dedicated the entirety of his 2020 EP, State of Emergency to making drill, as he rapped alongside some of the leaders of this wave in Fivio Foreign, Pop Smoke and Sleepy Hallow. The result was Tjay sounding somewhat out of place next to these guys. On Destined 2 Win, he attempts again, this time on “Headshot” alongside Polo G and Fivio Foreign, and it works. It was released as a single for the project and is an instant standout, but the problem is that the guests steal the show. Polo G delivers an entertaining and upbeat performance and Fivio is just as entertaining as always. Polo G and Fivio pass the baton to each other, essentially leaving Tjay behind in the race on his own album.
By the ninth track, “Go Crazy,” Tjay already labels himself a G.O.A.T., confirming that we have officially let this term be used way too loosely. It gets thrown around on Twitter just as much as monthly memes do, leading us to forget exactly what it stands for: “Greatest of All Time,” a title that only the best of the best at what they do can claim to be. That has inevitably spilled over into the rap game, where a lot of rappers are self-titled G.O.A.T.’s, but only a handful actually fit the bill. While certain arguments, such as the ones surrounding who is the greatest rapper or basketball player of all time, are opinionated and wildly up for debate, certain arguments just don’t make sense. Lil Tjay being the greatest rapper of all time is certainly one of them, and Destined 2 Win is a great example of him getting too ahead of himself.
With all of this said, there are hints of greatness on Destined 2 Win, but unfortunately they’re only minimal, they aren’t exactly unique and the album’s one-hour runtime is a lot to demand from listeners. While a few of these songs will more than likely end up on playlists like Rap Caviar or Spotify’s Hip-Hop Central, these are places for popularity, and Lil Tjay is just that. He’s a popular artist who’s able to gather streaming numbers, but his evident influence from artists like A Boogie Wit da Hoodie result in much of the same content being churned out with little to no artistic progression being showcased. Luckily he’s still only 19 years old and has plenty of time to bloom into a more unique and captivating artist.
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