I was super unimpressed with his first two albums, with his pre-Mansion stuff. Songs were way longer than they needed to be, with short repetitive looping beats (four measure max), rapping over the top. I don’t care about it. It’s not fun to listen to, it’s not interesting to read the lyrics, there’s nothing about it that’s at all stimulating for me. Most of the time I didn’t even notice when one song ends and the next starts. Not in a good way, not in like a “I’m just so into it I don’t notice”, or a “the flow just never stops” kinda way. They just all blur together, they’re all the same song and it’s not a good song.
From Mansion it gets significantly better. I’m not altogether sure why. I think in a lot of ways it’s much the same. It’s not a whole lot more complicated, it’s not structured any differently, the rapping doesn’t seem much different. If I had to guess what the biggest difference is, I think I’d say it’s that he’s got like… literally zero melody in those two earliest albums? It’s just the beat and the rapping. The next stuff isn’t all that complicated or musically interesting, but it does at least have a melody, which makes a big difference. One point in his favor, in the first 20 seconds of his first track on his first major-label album (Mansion) he dogs on Moments, his (self released) first album.
Point against him, I quickly reached the point where I was losing patience while I think the music was still getting better. There’s progress, yes, but I felt like I got a handle on the vibe two or three albums back, and the things I didn’t like about it then are still present despite progress in other areas. One thing that I think grates on me is how it’s all about itself. I’m not opposed to the content of what Feuerstein says, even, I think a bunch of it is pretty solid. But it’s all self-referential in a way that feels painfully self-centered to me. “This song”, “this album”, “people are gonna say x about my music”. It’s frustrating. I just don’t care to hear about the things he cares to talk about.
HOPE is a little more enjoyable than the rest of the albums. It has more song type of things in it, with singing and melody and some recognizable chords instead of solely rapping over a beat. It’s nothing crazy, it’s still not my favorite, I’m still disinclined to really like it, but it’s better. All around I don’t dislike NF, not at all, it’s just that if you look at this kind of rap as music, it’s so not what I care about in music. If you look at rap as poetry, it’s so not what I care about in poetry. What would attach me to this? It’s gotta be a D- from me
tunafruitsandwitch 
I get what you are saying and I don’t disagree, I just liked it more than you did. And I didn’t listen to anything that wasn’t on Apple, so I started with Mansion. The boy has a lot of feels. And you are right, all of the music is all about himself. He is processing a lot of heavy stuff. But I did like it. I think he is pretty brave to open himself up like that especially when he is male and young. That’s a risk and he took it. And took it. And took it (to your point).
I liked figuring out the rhythms, and hearing the stories. I especially liked Nate, and Story and GONE. And I was familiar with Let You Down. Who knew? The amount of words and speed in rap of this style is just kind of awesome to me. Sometimes I just listened to hear when he would take a breath. And sometimes I heard none. Is that studio magic? Can he do this live? I would like to see him live.
I would have never ever listened to so much NF or any NF for that matter, and because of this blog I did. And I’m glad I did. B- from me.
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