‘Forever Story’ album review

October 6, 2023 HPSH Plaid Line Leave a comment

By: Judah Gregory

Forever story is an album made by rapper JID. This album would be released on August 26, 2022 through Dreamville Interscope Records. This is his fifth album and a reference to his second album ‘The Never Story’. ‘Forever Story’ has 15 tracks but I will only be doing the first 10 because the rest are bonus songs. I will be going over them giving a summary about what they’re about and what I think of them.

Track 1: “Galaxy”

“Galaxy” is the first track of ‘Forever Story’ and was produced by Monte Booker. This song has the same lyrics as the intro to the ‘Never Story’ and follows the same spacey beat and flow even with the same ad libs.

The only change that I think came with the hype of this album is that it would get a skit at the end of it and it wouldn’t be the only skit of the album.

Track 2: “Raydar”

“Raydar” is the second track of the album and would be produced by a lot of people. Now, this song would take a complete change from the first track and would hit you with a loud aggressive beat immediately and an aggressive flow from JID as he would get on the track rapping about black people from their historical background to their modern position in the world now. But he also talked about how he’s trying to find a solution to try to change the status of how different people are seen and be united.

Track 3: “Dance Now”

“Dance Now” would be the third track and would only be produced by Christo and Avid. This song would have a more monotone but still hard beat with different vocals, and the beat changes with the trumpet in between made the song have a different flow and a change that I liked.

This track would also be his second, and my favorite of his singles on the album, and would also have a great chorus to the song.

Track 4: “Crack Sandwich”

“Crack Sandwich” is the fourth track of the album and was produced by Cardiac, Tbhits, Christo, Groove and Nami. “Crack Sandwich” has another pretty aggressive beat but this one is almost a little ominous. As JID raps hard about himself and his six siblings and over the course of the song he shows how good his wordplay is and how he can create it in his music. In the song he talked about how he and his siblings started a brawl in New Orleans and how his parents, who were hard on them, think that they would be proud that they stuck together and that their impulsiveness is what made their connections.

Track 5: “Can’t Punk Me”

This is the fifth song. “Can’t Punk Me” is very high action and has a fast sounding beat being produced by KAYTRANADA & JD Beck. In the song he raps about the experience that the protagonist is going through, and coming from a disadvantaged background had to overcome different things to become a poet, and have success with the chorus of the song being: “(I pulled out the bomb)” which I think is a metaphor for his bold demeanor.

Track 6: “Surround Sound”

This 6th song is widely viewed to be JID’s best single already. But with the remix coming onto this album with 21 Savage and Baby Tate made this song blow up immediately, and with its great beat, and the changes, and then them rapping in between, made it my favorite song on the album.

This song would actually be leaked in 2021 but only a few snippets of it.

Track 7: “Kody Blu 31”

The third to last song, and the seventh song of this album, is “Kody Blu 31”. This song is dedicated to JID’s friend’s son named Kody. He was a football player and wore number 31 but he died at a young age. This song talks about him trying to help Kodys family “keep swinging” or just keeping their head up and moving. The beat on this song is more melodic which fits for the song.

Track 8: “Bruddanem”

This is the eighth song of this album and features Chicago rapper Lil Durk. This song is all about their brothers and their strong relationship with them and saying that they would do anything for each other.

I also have a lot of brothers so this is a song I could make a connection to. This also is just a good song with more of a calm flow to it.

Track 9: “Sistanem”

This is the 9 track and the second to last song I will be talking about. This song is completely dedicated to JID’s sister, who is one of the most influential and important people to him. I like how the song is set up with each verse after the chorus describing the evolution of their relationship. This song has the same beat as “Bruddenem” just inverted, but still sounded just as good as the original.

Track 10: “Can’t Make You Change”

Track ten and the final track I will be talking about is “Can’t Make You Change” and this song was produced by Quincy Jones, Elite, Bass Charity, Christo, and A.J. This song talks about not being able to change people and how hard it is to make people change out of their set ways.

I like how he raps with Ari singing in the back of it and the whole song is nice.

So, I think this is JID’s best album out of the five. Overall, I’d give it a 9/10.

Tech/Games

Apple’s bestselling iPhone to date: iPhone 6

October 6, 2023 HPSH Plaid Line Leave a comment

By: Manuel Avalos Mateos

On September 9, 2014, Apple revealed their eighth generation iPhone: the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. They were released on September 19. The iPhones received both positive and negative reviews from critics and customers. Within the first 24 hours of preorders becoming available, over 4 million preorders for the iPhones were made, which far exceeded the supply that was available. In the very first three days, ten million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units were sold.

The new iPhones introduced a new larger screen which users had previously hoped for in the iPhone 4 and 5. It had a new design and featured Touch ID on both devices. It had antenna strips on the back and a brand new display branded as “Retina HD Display”.

The iPhone 6 had a 4.7 inch display and the iPhone 6 Plus had a 5.5 inch display, making it the largest at the time. Both phones had the ability to shoot 1080p video at 30 and 60 fps and slow motion video at 720p at either 120 or 240fps.

The iPhone models are one of the thinnest iPhones to date. This of course, came with it’s own issues.

The iPhone 6’s are famous for their hardware issues. Users were quick to notice how easily the iPhone 6 Plus was able to bend. In a video which can be found on the YouTube channel “Unbox Therapy” they put the iPhone 6 Plus to the test to see how easy it was to bend the phone with bare hands. The video currently has nearly 75 million views. Users also reported the phone bending in their pockets when they went to sit down. The frame was designed to be light and thin and this caused the phone to bend nearly 3 ½ times easier than the iPhone 5. Famously known as Bendgate, some suggest Apple had already been aware of this issue before launch, but never decided to address it.

Regardless of the many issues it had, they are currently the best selling iPhones Apple has ever made to date. Total sales of around 223 million units globally.

Travel/Food

The history of boba

October 6, 2023 HPSH Plaid Line Leave a comment

By: Cleo Newton

Did you know that boba tea first came from Taiwan? The website Food&Wine says, desserts like tapioca pearls and shaved ice were pretty common in the 80’s, so was drinking milk tea. People decided to combine these things together to make boba tea. They put tapioca pearls at the bottom, added shaved ice, and finally filled the rest of the cup with milk tea.

Over time, people who sold boba tea at the market created fruit boba by using fruit powders and syrups. After this, they created more and more different types of toppings such as egg pudding, grass jelly, red beans, and almond jelly.

Eventually, they also created popping boba. It’s exactly what it sounds like, it’s a type of boba that pops when bitten into. In the classic boba tea, they swapped out the milk for non-dairy creamer, because of this, boba tea is known for being very creamy and sweet.

Some other common boba tea flavors are taro, green tea, mango, and watermelon. This one isn’t a boba tea flavor, but did you know that there’s something called boba tea pizza? It’s just where they take the classic brown sugar tapioca pearls and put it on pizza. Boba pizza is only sold at Dominos in Taiwan, would you try it?

When Taiwanese immigrants came to the US in the early 90’s, so did boba tea. The shops they set up were a good source of money and kind of became a safe place for other Asian American immigrants. Boba tea became popular in the US. It seems like boba tea first appeared in Los Angeles, California.

According to hypebae, some of the most popular boba tea shops around the world are, Happy Lemon, Ten Ren, The Alley, YiFang, Chatime, Boba Guys, and Xing Fu Tang.

Visit these places to try boba if you haven’t already or if you want to drink good boba tea. Boba and Tea and Sencha are two places locally where you can also find boba. After reading this I hope that you learned a couple new things about how boba came to be.