Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them (2012)
Zip Disks & Floppies (2013)
Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them is the second studio album by American hip hop duo Blu & Exile. Originally recorded in 2009 and leaked online in 2011, it was released through Dirty Science and Fat Beats on September 4, 2012.[1] Recorded at the DirtyScience Labs and produced entirely by Exile, it features guest appearances from Adad, Andy Allo, Black Spade, Fashawn, Homeboy Sandman, Jimetta Rose, J. Mitchell, and Johaz of Dag Savage.[2][3][4]
Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them Instrumentals was released on July 24, 2015 with different cover artwork and unreleased non-album instrumental track "Enough".[5]
Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them was met with generally favourable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 76 based on five reviews.[6]
David Amidon of PopMatters wrote: "working with Exile seems to ground Blu, forcing him to examine his self-image and the way the world perceives him. It's just riveting stuff for those who value rap music as a sort of social experiment, and those who've stuck with Blu throughout his whole gonzo period of bandcamps and muddy zshare files ought to feel vindicated by Fat Beats' treatment of this album".[9] Jonah Bromwich of Pitchfork resumed: "though this album is a beautiful, well-executed listen, Blu will only really be fulfilling his potential when he starts looking toward the future again".[8]
In mixed reviews, Phillip Mlynar of HipHopDX found "there's nothing to startle about the music or the lyrics and there's little that isn't coated with a whiff of having heard it all before".[7]
