Reach Record artist and CHH veteran Andy Mineo is back with Work In Progress, a mixtape that's fairly unique. As with his other recent releases, Work In Progress focuses heavily on working through family pains, the blessings of marriage, fear, and anxiety – ultimately leading listeners to seek God through all of life's difficulties. Serious rap fans have probably already heard a few singles, like "I Don't Need You," "Keepin' It Movin," and "Anything But Country," but many will be intrigued by the podcast clip inclusion between each song on the mixtape where you catch snippets relating to each. With Andy spitting fire and production from the likes of Beam and GAWVI, this has the potential to be in the hip hop release of the year conversation.

The mixtape's opening track is "Reflections," where the NY rapper just opens his heart in a soft spoken and honest way. It's a spectacular intro track that leads into the previously released "Keepin It Movin." This anthem-themed track reminds listeners to keep living, keep working, keep moving. "I Don't Need You" comes next and is one of the most powerful songs I've heard in a long time. Andy poured all of his feelings into a blender and lets them fly: anger, loneliness, sadness, anxiety, all of it. This is really some moving stuff that many can relate to, serving as a help to those in need with lyrical contents like "I need to know I'm not somebody that you just got to put up with. I need to know that I don't suck if I never had no success. I need you to stop judging me for the things I'm into." "1988 Remake" and "Honest 2 God" come along later as Mineo continues to reflect back on aging, struggles in life, and questioning his faith while ultimately leading rap fans to live for today and to strive for greatness.

Later on you'll catch "Anything But Country," a fun kind of quirky track with the encouragement to be open-minded people, while "Til Death" is a light song with a great tribute to marriage. Andy rapping while B. Reith sings the chorus make for a solid combo. Closing the mixtape are two familiar Mineo tracks: "I Ain't Done" and "Family Photo." This version of "I Ain't Done" is a remixed version produced by Beam that carries more thunderous production and changes some small things lyrically. It's definitely a great original track, and now it has been upgraded to trunk bumping quality. Ending things is "Family Photo Second Half Idea" which is actually a much cleaner/more refined version of the original, but because of that, it lacks some of the powerful emotions delivered by the original.

In the end, some of the songs fall on the shorter side and not everyone is going to appreciate the podcast snippets, but this is a very good release overall. After Andy "just mounted up my first gold plaque" and was a part of Steph Curry's recent documentary, his future is looking brighter than ever.

- Review date: 8/30/19, written by Kevin Hoskins of Jesusfreakhideout.com