Only Won

California’s Chinglish Holy Hip Hopper, Only Won, is one of many faces. He has shared the stage with underground peers Deeper Than Most, The Holy Rida, and One Truth, among others. In addition to his hip-hop work he is also an actor and model who has appeared alongside Ang Lee, Ashley Judd, Jennifer Connelly, and even Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness.

Inspired to incorporate Chinglish into his raps by hip-hop pioneer T-Bone, Only Won certainly favors the old school on Glory. “Intro” and “Outro,” are simply old school, beatless, freestyles as a matter of fact and the rest of the album is pretty much your basic drum machine, some sampling, and some keyboards here and there. Now don’t get me wrong, I prefer the sound of D-Boy, Peace 586, DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, and Young M.C. to today’s contrived, taking itself way too seriously, hip-hop mafias but the sound here is just flat. It lacks any kind of creativity whatsoever musically. That’s more than a little disheartening since the album was produced by Deeper Than Most’s Maximillian.

It seems there’s a lot of interesting things about Only Won as a person. As a matter of fact, that’s the sole component that keeps you from ejecting this album right away. Honestly, “Intro” is flat out awful. There are no beats to draw you in, the lyrics seem to constantly misstep, and…well…Only Won isn’t a very good rapper. It picks up a bit after “Intro” but for the most part the entire album always seems a second behind vocally and Only Won’s voice is so loud in the mix the music sounds thin and irrelevant.

What is good about this album, as I mentioned before, is that Only Won is a real person with a real life and a real story he wants to tell. The artist constantly lifts his song to the Lord while addressing life as Chinese-American. There aren’t a lot of people in the hip-hop world with this kind of background so that makes it naturally interesting and different. While songs like the title track and the catchy but poorly mixed “Nations Under (featuring OT & D1)” are automatically of interest because of their lyrical content, particularly the addressing of ethnicity in today’s U.S.A., the rest of this album falls completely flat.

Glory is one of those albums that you desperately want to like. Only Won has something to say but the delivery is simply lacking, keeping the message from truly being heard. I would pay hard-earned money to hear Only Won speak about his life but you may want to think twice spending your hard-earned money on Glory.

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