B4.DA.$$

Pitchfork 7.0/10 You could do far worse than to pick this record up for meditative late nights or bad-weather commutes, where it's best to just zone out and let the vibe sneak up on you.

A.V. Club C B4.DA.$$ isn’t a stone-cold classic debut. Instead, it’s a playful, confident, compelling nod to the genre’s past that never reverts to fetishism or coasts on the legacy of the sounds it borrows.

The Needle Drop 8/10 New York rapper Joey Bada$$ meets expectations on his commercial debut.

NME 3/5 None of which is to say it’s a bad album, just a lightweight one.

Rolling Stone 3/5 His official debut LP still sounds like it's stuck in the past, with solid production from old-school legend DJ Premier and his latter-day disciple Statik Selektah.

DIY 4/5 As it moves from warm, old school turntablism to the colder, harsher sounds of early gangster rap, B4.DA.$$ resists the current bent towards Trap, instead functioning as a love letter to the masters of hip hop’s Golden Age from one of its keenest students.

All Music 3.5/5 Joey Bada$$ draws the golden age hip-hop fetishist in without a problem, but his delivery is so full of life, it still holds sway for those who don't know their Bad Boy from their Death Row.

Slant 3.5/5 Drawing off nearly 40 years of hip-hop history, B4.DA.$$ is a hodgepodge work which equates organic, sample-oriented music with a certain type of old-fashioned conviction.

Pop Matters 8/10 The album is strikingly similar in tone to the mixtapes; he’s not trying anything different, but rather continuing what’s worked well for him.

The Guardian 2/5 Once the novelty wears off, though, you’re left with an album that is too often set at the middling pace of a Fugees B-side, and a rapper whose technical abilities are nowhere close to those old timers he seeks to emulate.

Spectrum Culture 75% With B4.DA.$$, Bada$$ has made a stellar mix of jazz-rap that harkens back to A Tribe Called Quest and Illmatic in a way that would actually make Nas proud.

The Telegraph 4/5 Impressive debut.

Hot Press 6.0/10 Patchy debut from NYC rapper.

RapReviews.com 8.5/10 “B4.DA.$$” is a step in the right direction in New York hip-hop getting the attention and validation it has long been denied.