Sal D. – My Fate Has Been Adjusted

By Conor Hooley
My Fate Has Been Adjusted is Sal D’s would-be ticket out of Fort Collins. He says so himself: “I’m trying to move to New York to spread my music… That’s why I recorded My Fate Has Been Adjusted, so I can have a professional album to take down there.”
That’s nice and all, yet My Fate is very much an amateur’s work: occasional flashes of brilliance mired by excess volume, shoddy cohesion and puerile lyricism. The sequencing is the biggest letdown, as the disc unfolds with the kind of scatterbrained logic and narrative apathy only paralleled by the Now: That’s What I Call Music! compilations.
20 tracks are included, making a front-to-back listen taxing. Take, for instance, songs like “Jessica Alba” and “Charlie Sheen.” They are posed as lighthearted, comical tracks, but done in such a half-handed way that they can’t help but feel like filler. As ever, we must return to the wise words of the GZA on such matters: “Keep it brief, son. Half short and twice strong.”
However, there are bright spots. “New York Minute” is a genuinely heartfelt rap about Sal’s brief visit to NYC and poor showing in an MC contest. Over a well-fitting chipmunk soul beat, he makes it work with an earnest, workmanlike swagger. “This One’s on Me” is high quality club material, and “Fourth Kind” works as an energetic closer.
My Fate is flawed, but shows some promise. And who knows, with the ever-decaying state of NYC hip-hop these days, maybe Sal D. has a puncher’s chance.
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