One Umbrella Records, 2020
It’s been just over five months since the situation between Tory Lanez and Megan thee Stallion, which left Meg with an injured foot due to gunshot wounds and Tory with accusations claiming he was responsible for her injury. Both artists were initially quiet about the situation until a month later, when Meg officially and publicly claimed that it was Tory who shot her as a result of an altercation. On September 24, when Tory finally announced that he would be responding to the looming allegations, everyone on social media assumed he would be going on Instagram Live to tell his side of the story, but we all know what happens when we assume. Instead, he dropped a surprise album titled Daystar, named after his birth name, in which he addresses the situation and his side of the story throughout most of the album’s run-time. In a way, it makes sense for him to address these issues through music considering he’s a musician. However, what it ultimately came down to was his poor judgement in using the situation to personally profit off of, rather than taking the time to address an extremely serious situation that goes beyond his music career. Since the release of Daystar, he has been relatively quiet and has even pleaded not guilty to the accusations in court, but he returned in late December to drop off Loner, another full-length album. On Loner, Tory attempts to get back to his old ways by creating bangers and dodge the ongoing accusations through big-time collaborations, but fails miserably.
Before the situation, Tory was riding off the success of last year’s Chixtape 5 project and even The New Toronto 3, his first and best full-length release of 2020. With Loner, he fails to effectively follow up his past two successful releases and completely misses the mark on putting together a decent project. The intro, “Young N****s” finds Tory flowing with his classic sing-rap flow, briefly mentioning the situation through bars such as “They tried to cancel me, send me right back to the trap / With the shooters, killers and the junkies / I give a fuck if they hatin’, they been hatin’ / All the drama come from bitches I been dated.” While it's necessary for him to address, it loses credibility when the following bar is a braggadocios one about how iced out his diamonds are. Overall, this intro draws listeners in due to his high energy throughout the track, but what follows is far from outstanding.
Most of the following songs are the typical attempt at creating club and stripper anthems. “Band a Man” is a reference to each member of Tory’s crew spending a band ($1000) during a night out. His delivery and flow is hard to listen to as his voice cracks are the most noteworthy part of the song. On the hook, he raps “Let’s put up a band a man, it’s twenty of us, that’s at least twenty bottles." Good math skills, Tory. “Big Tipper” is one of the aforementioned strip club anthems, but it’s been done 100 times before, and 100 times more entertaining than this. Not even a clever verse from Lil Wayne could save this one. Carrying on the notable guest list present on Loner, I can think of few other artists who would be worse to get a feature from in 2020 than Rich the Kid, yet Tory recruits him for a predictable and forgettable guest verse on “Boink Boink.”
By the time Tory finally gains his focus on the final three songs of the album, it’s way too late to save the project as a whole. While there’s nothing wrong with club anthems and braggadocios tracks, and I’m a fan of both when they’re done in an entertaining way, Tory simply brings nothing new to the table with him on Loner. The big name features aren’t the type of collaborations that bring the best out of Tory and vice versa. On “Motorboat,” he raps “Fuck the strip club, that shit had me goin’ broke / Got a family to feed, I can’t damage my seed”; only a few tracks after the aforementioned “Big Tipper,” where he brags about being a generous tipper at the strip club. It’s exactly this kind of inconsistency and laziness that make Loner a forgettable release. While it’s hard to say if Tory will ever get back to his roots after the daunting legal situation, all we can do is hope that this project is just a bump in the road in his journey back.
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