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Let’s jump right into this. The Kid Daytona’s latest release, Come Fly With Me, is a racecar. No, not a palindrome, we’re talking about a high powered ride. The album’s greatest asset is the production – which in this metaphor is the 600 HP, big-block V8 that’s under the hood. Daytona’s flow is carefree and light; his writing cheeky at best but overall lightly complex. Let’s get specific, racecar might be a little blunt. It’s a dragracer – powerful but versatile it is not.

Daytona starts the album with “Just Fly,” produced by 6th Sense, who did the lion’s share of the production on the album and was interviewed by RS a while back. The track is pushed through by a piano-laden melody establishing Daytona’s roots in hip-hop and provding the album with something resembling an intro. The majority of the tracks are laced together with a half-electronic, half-jazzy sound that sounds like the inspiration for these tracks came from late 80s/early 90s movie soundtracks. Neo-nineties? Let’s run with that for lack of a better term.

The beats range from heavy, symphonic joints like “Honestly” to what I think the theme song to Spike Lee’s black version of “Miami Vice” would sound like with “Twilight.” 6th Sense puts together a dynamic festival of sound with “Contact!,” which features Kardinal Offishal, with heavy drums, cymbals and wah-wah effects. Coupled with Daytona’s lyrics, the sound prompts the visual of Daytona meeting and making this “contact” with the girl in the song in Rio or Barcelona. Would make for a vibrant, energetic music video.

Lyrically, Daytona is like the outer shell of his racecar. All those sponsor stickers are colorful but it doesn’t make you any faster around the track. Daytona isn’t so much a punchline rapper as he likes to weave thoughts together and does so sucessfully which definitely earns him points for adding a level of complexity to this rhymes, however, his writing is clever but doesn’t break into the “conscious” level. His content is limited to mostly day-to-day issues and wordplay is used moderately throughout the release.

Overall, what the album lacks in lyrical content is made up in production value. Whether it is adding brass to a song to give it a specific feel or combining a synth line with acoustic guitar, the production team’s varied, creative  approaches make the release’s sound diverse and exciting. From the slower, cruise-to-the-beach track like “Eye Know” to a fast-paced organ and muted electric guitar track like “Perfect” that sounds like church sped up, the release has true variety and the beats to back it up. It’s ear candy – get your sweet tooth ready.