I thought most of his points were valid and I agree that it seems like a trend to dislike the big output of most of the mainstream rappers. But if you think about it, he has some surprising spikes in his reviews. He gave drakes mixtape an 8/10 despite the fact that he didn't like a lot of drake's output for a while. Fantano likes a decent balance between mainstream and underground.

If you look at his "I hate hiphop," letter to a fan episode, you can sense some of the things he looks for and gives a list of albums he digged in the current at the time. I think my favourite breakdown he gave was on his video Beats vs. Lyrics a friend sent me, and it outlined his respect for how the producers are getting the recognition they deserve alongside the M.C. he stated that what he looks for in hip hop is this.

For me, a great Hip Hop song comes down to balance. Balance between the lyrics and the beats. There is nothing more disappointing to me for a Hip Hop song to have a fantastic instrumental and weak bars from the M.C. and vise versa.

Even though he says that the lyrics is subjective and that some people just want simple messages but it seems like the reason why you see a trend of him disliking the big output from the mainstream is exactly the problem the mainstream is getting into. You gotta realize that Fantano is not a head a lot of people forget that in this sub, but watching his reviews is interesting because he can say a lot of positive things about an album and still give it a 6. Vince's new albums drags a hell of a lot in the middle on my first listen and he isn't that interesting in my opinion. Fantano approaches all the albums with the same mentality and that can be bad or good depending on the album. At the end of the day, music is subjective and we just gotta do what we always do on the sub, take the review, digest it, and reflect on your next listen from another person's perspective. That's how I feel about any reviewer out there and it's nice to here an opinion that isn't from a head to give a new spin on an album.