New Jersey native Danielle Balbuena, professionally known as 070 Shake, just dropped her debut album. While many haven’t heard of Shake until now, if you’ve been paying attention to her and the 070 collective, then you know that Modus Vivendi has been a long time coming. After parting ways with Yes Julz’ 1AM Entertainment, she made her way to Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music and released her single “Trust Nobody.” It was re-released through the label in a joint venture with Def Jam Recordings back in September 2016.

Fast-forwarding to 2018, she released her debut project with the label, Glitter EP. Months later Shake was introduced to many during the stretch of G.O.O.D. Music releases. After being featured on Pusha T’s “Santeria” off of DAYTONA she stole the spotlight on “Ghost Town” from Kanye West’s ye. In addition to also being featured on Nas’ “Not For Radio” alongside Diddy from NASIR, she had writing credits on “WTP” from Teyana Taylor’s K.T.S.E.

Who Was Involved With This Project?

In terms of featured vocals on the project, there are none. In a Tweet, 070 Shake referenced going “J. Cole style” and having no features. Producers involved with Modus Vivendi are Mike Dean, Francis and the Lights, Clyde Ellison, J Sebastian, Dave Hamelin, Dominic Halaapiapi Lopez, Harry Mejias, James Shaw, Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, Myles William, Sean Solymar, and Sarah Schachner.

What I Like

Pretty much everything. 070 Shake entered the scene as more of a rapper, but Modus Vivendi doesn’t have much rapper aspects to it at all. She’s like the female Kid Cudi, but on a whole other level. The melodies on this project nearly lifted me off my feet. It was very smart to have a featureless project for her debut album, it gave her the best chance to shine for the world. For her second album, it would be amazing to have Kid Cudi as her sole feature, but without Cudi, she could still pull off putting together a great project.

What I Don’t

There’s not much to say here. The length of the project was a great length. Even though the songs don’t flow perfectly (100% of the time), this is still a cohesive project. From a business standpoint, they should’ve made “It’s Forever” by The Ebonys (track four) thirty seconds or more so that Spotify would’ve counted the streams. From an artistic standpoint, I admire that they did that knowing that Spotify wouldn’t count the streams because they used the part of the song that they wanted and didn’t want to push it.

With that being said, I hope that this album gets the attention it deserves. It definitely won’t be right now, but one day it will. Modus Vivendi was released the same day as an Eminem album, Mac Miller’s first posthumous album, a Halsey album, among others. There’s not much room for this project to commercially succeed right now, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be admired farther down the line. For fans of 070 Shake, they love it. It’s not her Yeezus, but it just needs time to catch on with non-070 Shake fans, and I believe it will.

Kanye, Pusha T, whoever signed Shake over at G.O.O.D. Music was a genius. She deserves the biggest platform to share her writing, melodies, and to be able to work with the best producers. Mike Dean, while he didn’t produce the entire album, had a big hand in the album, and I can tell by listening that he put Shake on to other producers and different musicians. Modus Vivendi has already been played by me countless times and I know I’ll play it countless more times. It’s very refreshing to see someone that is surrounded by so many creatives to still go a step above them all by making something so different.

What are your thoughts on the album? What would you relate it to? Let us know in the comments below, and stream Modus Vivendi on all platforms now, and you can also buy merch and the vinyl for her album here.