Blue Diamond Island marks the official debut of Villa Rosa, the collaboration between Minneapolis/St. Paul artists Maria Isa and Muja Messiah. Both have shown moments of great promise with solo releases, but neither have put together a collection of material that’s solid from start to finish. When I heard they were releasing an album together, I thought they might combine their talents to finally realize their potential. Instead, my frustrations with both artists continue.

On the title track, they start things off strong with a minimal timpani beat and a simple keyboard line as Isa and Messiah begin to rhyme. While the subject matter is political in nature, it isn’t very focused. When we hit the bridge, Isa sings about babies smiling and people crying. I feel like I’m supposed to have a moment, but it feels so forced and out of nowhere, I’m just confused. On the second track, “Watch Out,” we start off with a nice beat by Big Head Productions featuring backward phased keyboards that immediately has me bobbing my head. Again, though, we’re presented with political rhymes that sounds more like just a collection of phrases and name drops than any actual message. I might agree with where they fall on the political spectrum, but I’m going to need you to actually say something before I can champion your message.

“Blindfolded” features a nice sample of Nina Simone’s “Baltimore,” but there’s one glaring problem with this - BROTHER ALI ALREADY SAMPLED THIS SONG! I don’t bring this up to enforce some sort of unwritten rule between producers, but to point out that if a well known artist from your town used a sample several years earlier on a well known song, it’s in your best interest to stay away from it. That way I won’t be forced to unfairly compare the two songs. Brother Ali’s “Freedom Ain’t Free” is a fantastic song, and I would imagine most who are listening to Villa Rosa are going to be familiar with it. Why dig yourself in this hole? It’s not worth it, in my opinion.

“Chico,” produced by Benzilla and featuring I.Self.Divine finally has them focused and carving their own space, but it lacks any sort of hook to make it very memorable. “Leader of the Pack,” produced by Mike Theo Martyr sounds like a Talib Kweli joint, featuring midtempo soul samples, a nice hook and strong verses from both artists. It took a little while, but the album is starting to come together.

Another hiccup comes when we get to the song “Uma Thurman.” The song seems to be about slut shaming, which I’m hoping wasn’t the original intention, but when the chorus features Isa singing “I gave it up,” in reference to sexual experiences in high school, it’s hard not to interpret it as such.

After getting back on track for a few more songs, we get the bizarre “Skateland,” which sounds like a slow jam from the early nineties, and features some ridiculously weak rhymes from Messiah. I might be offended if I could take these lines seriously. “I’m no match for the power of the mighty camel toe”?!! Really? You’re going to go with that? You’re going to follow it up with a line about going commando like Sharon Stone? Come on, Messiah, you’re not 13. You can do better.

We get back on track once again, though, this time with another joint from Benzilla on “Dr. Drug.” It features playful syncopated piano line and a decent hook and lyrics about prescription drug abuse. Unfortunately, just when I thought the album might end on a strong note, we get to “Food,” which is about diet and nutrition, but instead of relying on facts or personal experience, they choose to relate information second hand and jump to conclusions. At one point Messiah rhymes “I know a chick in Colorado who contracted mono/rumor has it was from a Big Mac at McDonalds/Fact or fiction/If it happened or it didn’t/I just know we’ve all been victimized by capitalism.”” Fast food is terrible for many reasons that have been well documented in places such as Fast Food Nation, Super Size Me, and Food Inc., among others. There are no shortages of sources of nutritional facts to pull from. If you want to relay your personal relationship with fast food, that can also be helpful, since any nutritionist will tell you there are emotional and psychological connections with food consumption. A rumor about someone you know contracting a disease not normally associated with unsafe food handling and blaming it on McDonalds doesn’t really help your cause, and you need to provide more information if you want to bring in issues of consumerism and capitalism. If that wasn’t bad enough, Dodi Phy has to make sure the album ends on an especially bad note by coming on the record to talk about how he doesn’t eat pork, but he does eat pussy. Really? How am I supposed to take you seriously with lines like these?

Isa has talent as a vocalist and emcee, and finding a good balance between rhyming and singing, all while working with Messiah’s rhymes and various producer’s beats is not an easy task. However, the biggest problem Villa Rosa faces is lyrical consistency. It’s not enough to write a couple of killer lines. If you’re making an album with fourteen songs, you’ve got to push yourself hard to stay focused and really hold yourself accountable to your listeners. A lot of songs start out with decent ideas, but a good portion fail to develop into anything worthwhile. To an extent, it feels like Isa and Messiah aren’t going back through their material and figuring out what works and what doesn’t, when lyrics are on point or when they’re bad, or even when they could be misinterpreted. I really wanted to like this album, but for every step forward, there were at least two backward.