Break A Leg is a dense and soulful exploration of Lord Juco's recovery, backed beautifully by production duo The Standouts.
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Lord Juco is a Toronto MC who's been active for nearly a decade, though my awareness of him is relatively new. Years ago I was in touch with Saskatchewan producer Rayne Drop who was producing the debut Juco album back in 2016. I never got around to hearing his debut tape with Rayne when it was originally out. Flash forward to 2023 and I was knee deep in the catalogues of Pro Dillinger & Daniel Son and I stumbled upon Juco once more.
I spent many of my listening hours that year catching up on his numerous EPs and made sure to order in some of his vinyl. I was drawn to his style for a number of reasons. Lord Juco employs a variety of flows, often sporadically going from one pattern to the next. Many of his beat choices have soul samples and understated drums which often play all the way through his choruses. He's an easy pick if you're interested in the corners of the hip-hop world that includes folks like Roc Marciano, Earl Sweatshirt or Navy Blue.
Over the winter months in 2023-24 Juco was dealing from a serious injury and conceived much of the album while recovering at home. During this time he was formulating a second album with the production duo The Standouts from Fort Worth, Texas. I was less familiar with them musically but had seen their name before on lots of BarsOverBS drops from Waterr and Ty Farris. Not to mention they landed a slot on the WSG mixtape run earlier this year as well.
Kicking off the album, is the title track. The horns and group vocals being looped are perfectly matched with tumbling bass for an excellent instrumental. Juco dives in immediately with vivid lyrics of a being laid up in the hospital and pulls the audience in for a front row seat to the moment. He spits lyrics about his brush with death and the perspective he's gained since then. The syllables and wordplay are clever like "Crutches the only thing I ever leaned on" while also still showcasing his internal monologue by saying "Found strength in vulnerability/ My own thoughts was killing me/ Now they're spilling on this paper willingly." There's a whole character arc going on here from his reliance on pain meds to nurture his leg to fighting through his dejection and loneliness. The second verse continues this density while uniting the theme of "breaking a leg" with film and plays. A great kick off you have got to rewind.
The cleverly titled "X-Ray" follows second with a great balance of piano and basslines. The percussion continues to be light on snares and hi hats with just a twang of the bassline and a single guitar lick to keep the rhythm going. So far the song structure feels really loose and unpredictable with these long and cohesive verses that slowly come to a climax instead of a chorus. The songs aren't circular in format at all. Lord Juco still is able to build and set up his punchlines without sounding like he's meandering or losing directions. There subtle nods to perception, him seeing his competition from afar while still having his privacy. I like the description of shovelling his driveway in a skid steer while living on the country side and seeing wildlife out his window. It's not a setting typically described in hip-hop songs and as a kid who grew up in and around acreages, I'm digging it. I've been stuck outside shovelling driveways for hours by hand. Wish I had a skid steer back then and I miss seeing deer in my backyard.
"Help" has one of the most cozy instrumentals with huge basslines in the beat. The rest of the production would normally get swallowed up with a different kind of mix but the soul samples and Jucos voice sit perfectly. So far the Standouts have a very organic approach to the beats here. No 808's or excessive symbols, it's almost all melody. "Help" is still one of the faster beats here despite how quiet it is and Juco is slowly getting cockier and flashier with the bars as the record progresses. "Lots of lifetimes but I wear it well" is a great one liner but I also enjoy the way he over laps each ending syllable to keep a brisk pace to the song. Another stand out is "You need a new story/ On the hush, they move for me." The chorus on here doubles down on the self sufficient nature of not only Jucos career but a philosophy that he's lived with to solve problems throughout life.
The first single to the record, "Better", dropped over a year prior to the album coming out. The subtlety and space continue to be highlights on the production end. The drums are more pronounced with even some light kick drums and snares. This track here is practically quintessential Juco. Sporadic changes in rhyme pattern and good use of space along with this unfazed and relaxed delivery. I love the first couple lines of him dragging out his vowel sounds rhyming "choose better" "newsletter" and "who measures". It's one long verse full of quotables from him. I love that set up of him comparing his competition to cosplayers. I remember hearing this song first and thinking "Oh yeah, him and The Standouts can work." I was sold on the compatibility instantly.
The mid point of the record has one of my favourite songs. The cleverly titled "Winterlude" has a fantastic start and the rhyme patterns from Juco come in like an avalanche. Instantly we're placed into this cozy image of being snowed in and seeing deer track through the window. The braggadocio is immediate and I dig how he went from describing his V6 and flipping the expression of "no spoilers" to move into this movie theatre bar. All in a handful of seconds we have him flexing about cars, denouncing people who want free shit telling people "get a ticket". Getting a ticket also reverts back to the car bar too so we can reverse the line and it still works. There's incredible burst of multis with him saying "Used to price shop and car hop and bar hop. now the blunts rolled proper." There's also nods to him slipping into drug use in his past but, much like the rest of the song, there's this feeling of him pondering like all of this is far in his past. Additional standouts (no pun intended) are the couple of lines "See I leave these Standout beats on repeat, make this shit look easy, the zone where it keep me, I hope it don't leave me." This is probably the quietest and subdued beat on the whole album.
"Up & Down" beat wise feels like a sister song to "Better" as the instrumental has a lot of the same ingredients to the bits of vocals and piano riffs down to the soft clicks of the percussion. The theme of endurance and lesson learning starts to pick up on the second half of the album. Standout lines include, "Lemongrass keep my stress lower, in case I gotta circle back to the circus act when the clowns came in." Lord Juco knack for flipping from one rhyme to the next is on full display here I never know what note he'll land on. The chorus is equally nonchalant as well as he has only one line and just sneaks it in to the verse. "Still doing this little rap thing/Thanks for asking, shipping records to Japan with tracking." Then the song ends with a few extra lines on top of that which tie up his mantra to marketing and persistence. "Quiet if they ain't copping and there's no other option." I respect when an artist knows their niche. Hand to hand with a unique sound has always served Lord Juco well up to this point.
The strong second half continues with a excellently woozy groove on track seven "Motion". The somewhat disengaged delivery of the chorus helps convey was weird this rhythm is. "Who's going through the motion? Who's really got motion" kick off a really slick first few bars. Juco makes great use of pauses while getting autobiographical about keeping his family life private from lurkers on Social media. I love the breakdown "Dying in slow motion, lemme tell you about a lost child/Didn't understand his emotions they called him hostile/Wild cause his talks thought provoking they want him docile." You could pick fifty words all throughout this song that rhyme with the song title. Those dense bursts of multis continues with "He on that poets potion in pole position/to make those decisions without motion sickness./They got motion? What type of motion is it?" Despite how subtle the production and vocals have been throughout this album, the braggadocio and skill set is undeniable.
The Standouts continue to a lot with a little with another of my favourite beats on "Big Child". The guitar intro is excellent and the soft cymbals work well with some gentle finger snaps. The confidence continues and Lord Juco has bounced back immensely since the kick off of the record. I like all the metaphors of light and darkness that he's using to signal his recovery. That line about having angels in his palm fighting at night, presumably during his writing process, is really clever too. Also him saying "cookies and caramel, glove compartment ruins new car smells." He's getting flashy and descriptive while still imparting the listeners with gems like "I challenge you limit your access/get more assets, the income passive, the aura massive, big dog Bull Mastiff." The Ras Kass nod is nice too. The chorus brings it all back too. Since track one we've been in a hospital bed strung out on paid meds and now the change in confidence has been huge. The album continues to have narrative progression.
The only real set of drums that feel added on show up on the penultimate track "8+1". The keys are great and the drums are chunky and the kicks run deep. As the final leg of the record gets going, Lord Juco is acknowledging all the supporters who miss him while still kicking some decent bars like "Walk it like I'm talking it/Literally learned how to walk again." Even with comparative rigidity of this song having more pronounced drums, Juco continues to dance in and around the pocket. He's not kidding when he says he'll float on any BPM.
Another highlight for me comes lastly with the closing track "Slumlord". The subdued percussion and wailing vocal loops make for a very bright finish to the album. Lord Juco's talent for transitioning smoothly from one flow to the next is on full display here in lines like "I'm making it happen, they talkin I'm all action/ Expendable, Lord dependable every verse memorable." Every song has some type of film entendre or implication to stage plays. Even if it's just going from the word action to referencing Expendables franchise. This song is just loaded with themes of victory and passing by your opponents while giving nods to the Death At The Derby movement. When Juco finishes the song saying it "can never be surface level" making sure he's directly telling the audience to spin it back as many times as it takes to catch ever bar.
Pros: Lord Juco is an incredibly unique writer. His vocabulary and reference points are wide. It's immediately obvious he's reading and writing as an elite level. On top of that his choice of flows and cadences is always engaging. He's not trying to keep all his syllable counts even on every single line. He'll rap seven words in one line and thirteen words in the next often rhyming whenever he feels like it. Sometimes the end rhyme connects to the mid point of the previous of next line and his of pauses allow him to leave and come back without being off beat. Other guys that rhyme like this are Roc Marciano, MF DOOM and Jay-Z. Speaking of Hov, Juco has that special sauce of just having entendres here and there that help him move from one subject to the next. Even just one line by itself is bound to have an extra layer. Every song boasts this fluid stream of consciousness without losing the head nod factor. Lord Juco overstands where his quarter notes are and he's able to dance in and out of pocket without it feeling like a ramble or never ending word salad.
The beats are luscious and full of emotion with a rich buffet of soul loops and keys. The drums often hide below the rest of the beat but there's still an observable rhythm beneath all the fuzzy crackling of the vinyl being sampled. The Standouts know what they're doing and catering to Lord Juco is a walk in the park for them the second time around. Both MC and producer are digging deep for the most poignant stories they can tell.
Cons: While I'm not here to ward anybody off, if you want punchier instrumentals, what the Standouts are doing here probably isn't your bag. I personally love slower, more stripped down production so if I really had to pick anything to complain about it would be the brevity of the songs as somewhat of a weakness. While Big Child is my favourite beat on the second half of the record, it breezes by in under two minutes before the skit comes in. I recall Details having meatier song lengths without compromising Juco's writing style. I don't need every song to be two 16's and a 8 bar hook, especially with an MC who is so sporadic with their song structure like Juco but, sometimes I wanted the vibe to last as bit longer. Break A Leg is quite short not just overall but once you take the skits and fades out some of the rapping is done before a song passes two minutes. Some bridges or beat switch ups could've had the tracklist feeling a little bit more dynamic. That's just a nit-pick for me who loves what Juco does and I was still impressed with every beat The Standouts did as well. If a third album is on the docket than I could settle for that as a compromise.
Overall, for Juco fans this will be another home run. I was personally impressed with how stripped back and bare some of these beats actually got and the complete lack of features turned out to not even be a hindrance. Lord Juco is in his element and the narrative of him recovering and staying home writing constantly is compelling. Each song nods to him healing not only physically, but becoming more confident in his mental health as well. Break A Leg is an incredibly personal record with something pertinent to say. I think if you already love some of the bigger names in this drumless lane of hip-hop, Juco has a style that can appeal to you. Even when he's at his most subdued and personal, the technical ability and wordplay still shines through. I do highly recommend this record as both Juco and The Standouts have great chemistry. I'll be sticking around for the next album cycles from both parties that's for sure.
