Believers (¡Mayday! Album)
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''Believers'' is the fourth
studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
by American
hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...
group
¡Mayday! ¡Mayday! (stylized in all caps as ¡MAYD∀Y!) is an American hip hop group from Miami, Florida. The group comprises rappers Bernardo "Bernz" Garcia and Ben "Wrekonize" Miller, along with producer and percussionist Andrews "NonMS" Mujica. Unt ...
. The album was released on July 16, 2013, by
Strange Music Strange Music is an American independent record label specializing in hip hop music and founded by Tech N9ne and Travis O'Guin in 1999. History In 2009 Skatterman & Snug Brim fulfilled their commitment to Strange Music and left the label. In ...
. The album features
guest appearance The term guest appearance generally denotes the appearance of a guest in an artistic or pop-culture setting. The guests themselves (referred to as guest artists, featured artists, guest stars, or guest fighters, depending on context), are disting ...
s from
Kardinal Offishall Jason Drew Harrow (born May 11, 1976), better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall ( ), is a Canadian rapper and record producer. Often credited as Canada's "hip-hop ambassador", he has been regarded as one of the country's most prominent ...
,
Tech N9ne Aaron Dontez Yates (born November 8, 1971), better known by his stage name Tech N9ne (pronounced "tech nine"), is an American rapper and singer. In 1999, he and business partner Travis O'Guin founded the record label Strange Music. He has sold ...
, Irv Da Phenom, Anjuli Stars, David Correy,
Stevie Stone Stephen Lewis Williams (born July 28, 1981), better known by his stage name Stevie Stone, is an American rapper from Columbia, Missouri. He was signed to Tech N9ne's Strange Music record label from 2011 to 2021 and has since founded his own reco ...
and Kendall Morgan.


Background

In a June 2013 interview with
HipHopDX ''HipHopDX'' is an online magazine of Hip hop music, hip hop music criticism and news. ''HipHopDX'' has over 3.5M monthly readers, the website encompassing hip hop news, interviews, music, and reviews. The website's founder and CEO is Sharath C ...
,
¡Mayday! ¡Mayday! (stylized in all caps as ¡MAYD∀Y!) is an American hip hop group from Miami, Florida. The group comprises rappers Bernardo "Bernz" Garcia and Ben "Wrekonize" Miller, along with producer and percussionist Andrews "NonMS" Mujica. Unt ...
spoke about why they chose to title the album ''Believers'', saying:
We felt like we wanted to talk about the people who are true ¡MAYDAY! fans and address them. This album was talking to them in a way. Metaphorically, we feel like the universe gives you what you want, and we feel like we’re blessed by the universe, ‘cause we’re strong enough to ask and do what we need to do to make things happen. We feel like the universe works for you. Not to be corny, but you gotta believe it to see it. That’s why the cover is this little kid with a slingshot that just took down a helicopter, you know? It’s about seeing is believing. That’s what ¡MAYDAY! is. When you see us, you believe us. We turn people on all the time.
In the same interview, they spoke about the inspiration behind the song "Marathon Man", saying:
We have a song called “Marathon Man” inspired by the Boston bombing. Instead of a preachy gotta-save-the-world record, we wanted to talk about it because it was crazy event so we wanted to do a story on it when you're in the race. Imagine a story of you in the race and there's a bomb. You still runnin’, ‘cause you wanna win that race. You don’t wanna let that event stop you from doing what you wanna do in your life.


Critical response

''Believers'' was met with positive reviews from
music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...
. Alec Siegel of DJBooth gave the album four and half stars out of five, saying
Although the majority of ''Believers'' is a high quality melting pot of sounds and vocals, the album has its flaws, and hits an especially rough patch of three tracks beginning with My Life and ending with Tear Sh*t Down. The latter’s chorus sounds like a throwaway Black Eyed Peas song, and Wrekonize and Bernz seem to slow down their flow and dumb down their lyrics a bit. The former is repetitive in its beat and hook, and cliché in its concept and execution. This sobering, short lived mid-album dip in quality doesn’t last long though, as the band picks things up immediately and finishes the festivities with some of the album’s best tracks (Forever New, Shortcuts and Dead Ends).
Andres Vasquez of
HipHopDX ''HipHopDX'' is an online magazine of Hip hop music, hip hop music criticism and news. ''HipHopDX'' has over 3.5M monthly readers, the website encompassing hip hop news, interviews, music, and reviews. The website's founder and CEO is Sharath C ...
gave the album four out of five stars, saying
''Believers'' is another notch in Strange Music’s belt, one that explains why ¡Mayday! has become such a highly touted group. It’s an example of how a mash-up of genres can be executed well, without watering down all of the Hip Hop ingredients. It isn’t a straight-up Hip Hop record, but then again, as mentioned, it’s really hard to categorize it. Instead, it stands as a strong showing, even if done with an outside-the-box approach you can’t label. Now if genre-bending ain’t for you, this album may not be either. However, if a mind is open to different styles and various influences, then even naysayers may turn into Believers.
David Jeffries of
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
gave the album three and a half stars out of five, saying
Strange thing is, everything works, and yet ''Believers'' doesn't flow as well as 2012's like-minded ''Take Me to Your Leader''. Still, it's best to think of this album as a worthy second choice rather than a significant step down.


Commercial performance

The album debuted at number 75 on the ''Billboard'' 200 chart, with first-week sales of 5,100 copies in the United States. As of July 2015, the album had sold 18,000 copies in the US.


Track listing


Charts


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Believers (Mayday! album) 2013 albums Hip-hop albums by American artists ¡Mayday! albums Strange Music albums