Emmanuel Elone: Mello Music Group continues to promote high-quality alternative hip-hop emcees, and this song proves it. The beat is unlike any other, with a vocal sample that sounds like it came from the ’50s. Lyrically, all of the rappers bring some clever wordplay and tight rhymes that flow immaculately into an excellent hook. Not only is “Ignore the Man to Your Right” a killer song, it’s also hip-hop that no other artists are doing right now. It’s original and lyrical rap music that any fan of the genre will enjoy. [8/10]
Chris Ingalls: It’s abstract, it’s got crazy samples, but the groove is undeniable. The idea of taking hip-hop into unusual, atonal places really gives the genre a fresh perspective. Great change of pace. And the appearance of Homeboy Sandman keeps things grounded. [7/10]
Pryor Stroud: “Ignore the Man to Your Right” seems to emerge out of television static; the processed, legibly-dated vocal sample that whirls behind the lyric seems to isolate — and then continuously recycle — a flicker of an old movie that only hits the airwaves well after midnight. Both L’Orange and Jeremiah Jae move dexterously through the alleyway grit of the instrumentation and, with cryptic yet sharp-tongued wordplay, argue for a renewed tolerance for other lives and lifestyles that seem alien to one’s own — an argument that, in an age where systemic racism is surging to the forebrain of the collective American psyche, couldn’t have come at a better time. [8/10]
Chad Miller: I was into the retro vocal sample, but I wasn’t crazy about the choppy editing the whole time. Sometimes it worked to great effect though. The visuals inspired by the song are very rich, but the song seems to focus more on flare than on its substance, especially as the vocals so often threaten to eclipse the rapping. [6/10]
L’Orange and Jeremiah Jae’s new album The Night Took Us in Like Family releases April 21st via Mello Music Group.
SCORE: 7.25