IDENTITY

the take

I've never even heard of Dina Ayada before this year, but her latest album popped up in my Spotify feed, so I decided to see if it was worth listening to. Based on the reviews I've seen, people have been saying it's mid at best and pretty bad at worst, and I'm appalled at both conclusions. (It might be due to the fact that Gunna executive produced this project supposedly, but I haven't confirmed that tidbit via my own research.) Dina Ayada's "IDENTITY" is actually decent to me. The first half of the album starts off pretty good and remains consistent throughout, with tracks like "won't let go" and "problems". There are times that the Auto-Tune applied to Dina's vocals come off as a bit ear-grating to me, as well as the mostly standard trap production, and that's what made this album lose both a bit of steam and my interest by the midway point, which is the weakest point (aside from "lowkey", which is the best track overall). It recovers a bit from the end, with "don't get me started" having a catchy hook that had me in a slight chokehold and "damage", a track I didn't really care much at first, but now appreciate a bit more after multiple listens. Overall, this is a decent project. The lowest point is offset by the highest point, and the rest of the album falls in line with the certain threshold between "barely good" and "could've been good but actually average". Dina Ayada didn't really add anything new to the table with this, but there is some great material throughout the album, though.