Track: “SmallVille (Prod. J. Cole)”
Artist: XV
Release Date: January 28, 2011
Label: Warner Bros. Records and Roc Nation

Recent Warner Bros. signee XV dropped his latest track “SmallVille” a few days ago, collaborating with fellow rapper J. Cole. While Cole doesn’t grace us with a new verse, he crafts a superb track as producer, sampling The Smashing Pumpkins‘ “To Forgive”. Needless to say, XV goes in on the track, dropping clever line after clever line – “They’ll never steal my dreams like Leo DiCaprio.” – all while chronicling his relatively meteoric rise to fame. I haven’t watched the TV show Smallville, so I’m not entirely sure how the track relates, but Vizzy’s superhero references are smooth over J. Cole’s mellow, bass-heavy beat, taking the artistic liberty to add superhero inspired rhymes to the sampled chorus. Stream and download the song below.

“Smallville (Prod. J. Cole)” was released via Twitter; happy birthday to J. Cole! XV is expected to release his highly-anticipated album The Kid With The Green Backpack later this year.

Rating: 8.5/10

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