''Czarface'' (stylized in

all caps In typography, text or font in all caps (short for "all capitals") contains capital letters without any lowercase letters. For example: All-caps text can be seen in legal documents, advertisements, newspaper headlines, and the titles on book co ...

) is the debut

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by American hip hop supergroup

Czarface Czarface (; often stylized in all caps) is an American Hip hop music, hip hop Supergroup (music), supergroup formed in 2013 by underground hip hop duo 7L & Esoteric and Wu-Tang Clan member Inspectah Deck. They released their acclaimed debut album ...

. The album was released on February 19, 2013, by Brick Records. The album features

guest appearance The term guest appearance generally denotes the appearance of a guest in an artistic or pop-culture setting. The guests themselves (referred to as guest artists, featured artists, guest stars, or guest fighters, depending on context), are disting ...

s from

Roc Marciano Rahkeim Calief Meyer (born February 11, 1978), better known by his stage name Roc Marciano, is an American rapper and record producer. He is known for his intricate internal rhymes and wordplay detailing mafioso and pimp themes over sample bas ...

, Oh No,

Ghostface Killah Dennis David Coles (born May 9, 1970), better known by his stage name Ghostface Killah, is an American rapper and a member of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan. After the group achieved breakthrough success in the aftermath of ''Enter the Wu-Tang ...

Action Bronson Ariyan Arslani (born December 2, 1983), professionally known as Action Bronson, is an American rapper and television presenter. Born and raised in Queens, he released his debut mixtape ''Bon Appetit ..... Bitch!!!!!'' in January 2011 and indepe ...

Cappadonna Darryl Hill (born September 18, 1969), better known by his stage name Cappadonna, is an American rapper. He is a member of the hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan and is a member of the hip hop group Theodore Unit together with Ghostface Killah. ...

and

Vinnie Paz Vincenzo Luviner ( Luvineri born October 5, 1977), better known as Vinnie Paz (formerly known as Ikon the Verbal Hologram), is an Italian-born American rapper and producer behind the Philadelphia underground hip hop group Jedi Mind Tricks. He ...

. The album's production comes from 7L, Spada4 and

DJ Premier Christopher Edward Martin (born March 21, 1966), known professionally as DJ Premier (also known as Preemo), is an American record producer and DJ. He has been frequently lauded as one of hip hop's greatest producers by publications such as '' ...

Critical reception

''Czarface'' was met with generally favorable reviews from

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of m ...

s. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a

weighted mean The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 77, based on 7 reviews, which indicates "generally positive reviews". Omar Burgess of ''

HipHopDX ''HipHopDX'' is an online magazine of Hip hop music, hip hop music criticism and news. ''HipHopDX'' has over 3.5M monthly readers, the website encompassing hip hop news, interviews, music, and reviews. The website's founder and CEO is Sharath C ...

'' gave the album four out of five stars, saying "''CZARFACE'' has no major flaws. It’s obviously not for everyone, yet even when incorporating current critical favorites like

and Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire, no compromises are made. Inspectah Deck, 7L & Esoteric use '90s East Coast Hip Hop as a blueprint to innovate, and ultimately, that’s what made that era so special in the first place." Bryan Hahn of ''

The Source The Source may refer to: Film and television * ''The Source'' (1918 film), 1918 American drama directed by George Melford * ''The Source'' (1999 film), a 1999 documentary film about the Beat generation * ''The Source'' (2002 film), a 2002 scienc ...

'' gave the album a positive review, saying "''Czarface'' doesn't fall short of what it wanted to accomplish-knocking the chumps out the ring. It doesn't pretend to deliver positive messages for the kids or even tell heart wrenching stories about the hood. Plain and simple, 7L masterminded sinister beats while Esoteric and Inspectah Deck recruited some fellow emcees to show the potential of the often-mislead art of lyricism can sound like. Long live, ''Czarface''." Mark Bozzer of ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly ''Exclaim!'' print magazine publishes seven ...

'' gave the album a seven out of ten, saying "Minus all of the corny sound bites, this album undoubtedly keeps the underground renaissance sizzling." Bogar Alonso of '' XXL'' gave the album an XL, saying "Mention of the ‘90s, hip-hop’s supposed last golden era, might make some queeze, and for good reason. Hip-hop purists have long sucked on the decade like a warm thumb, afraid of the cold, mean world that lay ahead. But ''CZARFACE'', also the name for Deck and co.’s group, keeps matters as fresh. The album’s marquee—with names like Roc Marciano, Action Bronson, and Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire—assures just that. “Cement 3’s,” “It’s Raw,” and “Poisonous Thoughts”―listed in the order of appearance of the guests mentioned―come off as love letters rather than industry rub-offs. If the above trio were operating in the late ‘90s, they’d be dropping similar heat."

Commercial performance

The album debuted at number 34 on the US ''Billboard''

Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip-hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Luminate. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated January 30, ...

in the first week of its release.

Track listing

References

External links

{{Authority control 2013 debut albums Czarface albums 7L & Esoteric albums Inspectah Deck albums Albums produced by DJ Premier