All American

Hoodie Allen has been giving away his music for years now, but today marks the first time Hoodie is kindly asking his fans to pay for his tunes. For sale today is All American, a collection of eight songs that all have one thing in common: they’re completely original material from Hoodie Allen and his producers. Thus far, Hoodie has made a name for himself by taking samples from popular songs, flipping them, and rhyming over them with catchy flows and clever mentions of current events in the pop-culture and sports worlds. The eight tracks on All American are Hoodie’s alone; there are not any samples, and there appears to only be one feature (Jhameel sings the hook on “No Faith In Brooklyn”). A simple flip through Hoodie Allen’s profile pictures on Facebook will give you a glimpse into the progression that he has made in his musical career. He went through a major rebranding right around the time of Pep Rally‘s release, when he apparently decided it might limit his fanbase and future by sticking to what he had created: a personal image of being a nerdy white rapper. Instead, he decided to put away the lens-less glasses and pull out the Hoodie Allen we see today: a cleaned up, cooler, and sexier artist. Visually, the transformation is easily apparent. Sonically, there has certainly been growth as well. But the difference and growth that we saw between Pep Rally and Leap Year doesn’t seem to be quite as defined now with All American. That’s not to say that he didn’t take strides, because he did. But I think this album is more about the growth of Hoodie Allen as a person and a branded artist than the expansion of his sound to something we had never heard before.