★★★★★
Highway Robbery, a collaboration between Freeway and Bay Area legend the Jacka, has been held up for years by logistical and legal hurdles--which is a shame, because it's the best and most natural-sounding project Freeway has been involved with since 2007. "Got with Jacka 'cause he pray like I pray," he growls on the album's second track, "Dunya", a reference to their shared Muslim faith...
- pitchfork.com
2014-09-25
★★★★★
Fresh off the free release of digital LP Freedom of Speech, Freeway has dropped his fourth solo studio album via Babygrande. The rapper's first retail full-length since 2010's Jake One-produced The Stimulus Package, Diamond in the Ruff packs 16 original tracks from the Philly street veteran, including Booth-approved lead single "Jungle," "Numbers" and "Early...
- www.djbooth.net
2013-04-03
★★★★★
We've already discussed how Freeway's gotten to this point, and we've addressed how consistent he seems to be on the music front. With Diamond In The Ruff, he could've easily decided to mail it in yet again, but instead he puts out arguably his best project since Stimulus Package, the collaboration LP with Jake One...
- allhiphop.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
If you rewound back to the mid-2000s when Roc-A-Fella Records was king, you'd probably be surprised if someone surveyed the label's landscape and concluded that, of all the talent under Jay-Z and Dame Dash's wings, Freeway would wind up carving out the most consistent solo career. But against the odds that's exactly what happened, with the Jake One collaboration Stimulus Package sitting atop the whole package as certification that Freeway could craft one of a year's great releases...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-12-11
★★★★★
It's a cold winter, and Freezer's got you bundled up. Just as he once transferred his legendary ambition from the street corner to the recording studio, he's parlayed his Roc-A-Fella run to a productive independent career, lending his verses to tracks from the whole spectrum of the underground's best and brightest. In a sense, "Diamond in the Ruff" brings one of rap's most captivating voices full circle, reuniting him with both Just Blaze and Bink...
- rapreviews.com
2012-12-11
★★★★★
Leslie Pridgen, the Philadelphia rapper better known as Freeway, cannot suck. It is categorically impossible. The man with the broken-glass screech will always have a spot in our ears, if only for his inextinguishable white-hot ferocity. Life-or-death urgency is Freeway's stock in trade: he hurls every word at you like a man who's just arrived on foot from a murder scene. Anyone who treats his craft this deadly seriously cannot and will never truly suck, ever...
- pitchfork.com
2012-11-15
★★★★★
"A man's character is defined by his hustle..." - Freeway For most of us outside the Philadelphia area, our first taste of Freeway's music came with the release of his critically acclaimed debut, Philadelphia Freeway. With Just Blaze's hands all in the production mix alongside impressive outings from the then-solidified Roc-A-Fella label, Freeway seemed poised to make some noise, but not in the way we would think...
- allhiphop.com
2012-11-06
★★★★★
If you're a fan of the Roc, you've been hearing this kid for years and seeing him basically hanging on at Jay-Z shows, but he finally gets his turn to shine, sort of. There are some certified gems featured on Philadelphia Freeway, including the Minnie Ripperton sampled You Don't Know and the single What We Do. Just Blaze holds down most of the production, which is always a good thing, but there are way too many featurings (such as Snoop, Mariah, Jay-Z, Nelly, Faith Evans etc...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-09
★★★★★
The knock on Freeway is that his delivery is only suited for hood-on-smash conviction, but even if that's true, it's like criticizing GZA for being too clinical or M.O.P. for not doing enough for the ladies. There's something to be said for knowing your strengths, and-- lest we forget-- playing against type with Nelly and Mariah Carey collaborations on 2003's Philadelphia Freeway did him no favors...
- pitchfork.com
2010-09-11
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