Ashes to Ashes (mixtape)

Critical response

Ashes to Ashes was met with generally favorable reviews from music critics. Jonah Weiner of Rolling Stone gave the mixtape three out of five stars, saying "On this mixtape — too uneven to match the gruff grandeur of 2010's Teflon Don, but featuring some thunderous production by Lex Luger and Boi-1da — Ross brags with such actorly gusto you don't really notice (or care) how little sense he makes: "I'm smokin' dope! I'm on my cellphone!" he roars on "9 Piece". That shouldn't sound impressive, but with Ross pitching it, it does." Tom Breihan of Pitchfork Media gave the mixtape a 7.1 out of ten, saying "The tape moves from bangers to slick, more meditative tracks before returning to bangers, and it might work better if it were all bangers, all the time. Ross knows he's onto something with "B.M.F.", and he sounds more urgent and alive over churning minor-key trunk-slams than over just about everything else. But other than one godawful chorus from the Chester French chump, the whole thing comes off slick and professional-- more than enough to tide the world over in the brief period between Ross albums." David Amidon of PopMatters gave the mixtape a five out of ten, saying "Obviously, it’s a bit silly to complain about free music, and while Ross feels like a bit player in his own game once again, it mostly works to this tape’s advantage because of his weaknesses on the mic. So Ashes to Ashes succeeds in its main goals of keeping Ross in the public eye and verifying his ear for production. But it’s not going to win any new fans the way Albert Anastasia or Teflon Don did, and unless the production is way your thing, it’s going to be hard to find reasons to come back for multiple spins of the longplay."