Mooka da Babe – Keep Money Young Ebook Tribute F. M. (Single Review)

Mooka da Babe has a new rap single, ‘Keep Money Young Ebook Tribute F. M.’. Mooka da Babe says that he was inspired by French Montana’s personal history of saving money. Mooka da Babe believes that it’s this history that led French Montana to his success in the music business.

He says that this personal history inspired him to spread the message of saving money through publishing a tribute electronic book titled ‘Keep Money Young Tribute to French Montana’.

Afterwards, Mooka da Babe decided to produce a song as well. It’s this song we’re reviewing. The song starts with the spoken words of a lady in the absence of instrumentation or beat. The vocalisation here is energetic, and the words start by quoting from Proverbs 21:5, a verse that says ‘good planning and hard work lead to prosperity but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty’. Then the verse seems to cut some secular message, where we hear that money is more than just paper and ink. The spoken words ends with us hearing that we shouldn’t turn our dreams into nightmares, and keep our money young instead.

Then the instrumentation kicks in; we get what sounds to be a bell like when a boxing match starts. This is accompanied by some traplike beat with a thick and bouncing kick. In terms of flow, Mooka da Babe is quite lethargic and the result is that you get a beat and rapping that seem to be opposing each other – or going in different directions, if you will. There seems to be a mismatch between the flow and the beat. If I were Mooka da Babe, I would have chosen a beat that matches my flow.

The flow, however, is sometimes clear and sometimes not, so there’s that unevenness in the flow as well, which is a drag since Mooka da Babe’s flow is quite lovely. More than that, actually: it’s deceptive and is enough to hypnotise the listener. What suffers, though, is the clarity of the lyrics, and you end up not hearing the message.

But whatever shortcomings this song has, the message is already clear, and Mooka da Babe actually doesn’t have to rap the whole song so you can have it. For instance, another spoken word snippet comes in at the end, this time by a male vocalist, telling the listener to save their money – which again is the song’s main message.

SCORE/Excellent: Artistically, this is a mildly enjoyable song. It’s nice to hear Mooka da Babe’s lazy flow, and the spoken snippets keep the song from tanking. However, the song’s most important thing is its message. It calls on the listener to save or keep their money young, and this talk of saving money reminds me of the time the master rapper Jay-Z said Black people shouldn’t waste their money in strip clubs. These two songs are worth listening to together.

[We rank singles, EPs, and albums on a scale of Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, and Outstanding]

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