Album Review: Saigon "The Greatest Story Never Told"

As proven by his venerable mixtape past, Saigon's ability to maneuver through various topics becomes his best asset on The Greatest Story Never Told.

                               

While Saigon’s plight with the music industry is surely not a special case, it is still a revealing source of the intricate flaws that accompany being signed to a major label. Shelved as an artist due to marketing issues and unable to procure proper liberation from Atlantic Records, the New York rapper born Brian Carenard found himself shackled to a diminishing Rap career, a notion that was all too familiar for the former prison inmate. Five years later and finally off the label at the ripe age of 33, Saigon hopes to capture in one debut album what his peers have done in three to four releases with The Greatest Story Never Told.


As proven by his venerable mixtape past, Saigon’s ability to maneuver through various topics becomes his best asset on The Greatest Story Never Told. Whether it’s his disdain for the streets that paved a rugged road to the slammer on “Enemies,” or his aim to set a better impression for the youth with “Believe It,” Saigon’s convictions over enticing beats reveal a man with a lot on his mind and the right medium to display these thoughts. Taking his criticism a step further, Saigon launches a verbal assault on corrupt pastors who coerce their congregation for offerings that they in turn pocket for their own good will. Channeling memories from the past, he rhymes, “We was fucking depending on Section 8 / But always had something to put in your collection plate / It was always so strange, it was odd / To see my mom scratching up change to give it to God / I think we all knew, nobody saying shit / You was using that to pay your car payments / We was mother fucking paying your mortgage / We was living in the projects you know we couldn’t afford it.”

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