I’ve never been a huge fan of WSG, at all…but I always listen to new music, regardless of how I feel about their previous work. Westside Gunn is a curious one for me. As I absolutely respect his grind, his business acumen, and the way himself and the rest of the Griselda ilk have carved their own niche in the market. It’s a niche that has been mercilessly bitten. From the drumless production to the artwork, it seems like a ton of artists worldwide have tried to adopt the same aesthetic as the Buffallo natives. So there’s a respect that is gained from being, to a degree, pioneers of the ultra gutter sound. But, the most important part should ALWAYS be the music. So here we go.

“Mamas PrimeTime” is a track carved in the regular Griselda mold: Tough drums, and looped sample. Nothing spectacular about that, but when it’s done right, it can still sound dope. The feature from JID is welcome, as he’s a stellar emcee, and sounds right at home on this production. That’s followed by a few utterly forgettable, generic trap beats. Some of these tracks sound just like your old uncle at a family gathering mimicking “that rap shit you listen to”, but, cringingly, there’s not a whiff of humor at play in any of these embarrassingly out of touch with reality offerings. The production on “1989” is particularly poor.

I struggled to even get through most of the tracks that followed. The off kilter, lazy production just screams anti-music. The producers sound like they are trying too hard to be different, all to the detriment of any soul, or substance.

Flygod 2x is a welcome change. The jazzy samples, coupled with the heavy hitting drum beat totally works.

The rest of the album is a complete mess of generic Trap beats, awful adlibs, and what sounds like totally disinterested emcees that are way too comfortable within their esteemed status to gain any sort of realisaton that they may need to up their game.

Fleeting moments of risk taking can be found on “Chloe”, but it’s all drowned out amongst the rest of the sub par tracks. Having Denzel Curry as a feature on “Ultra GriZelda” completely rams home just how inferior WSG is as a straight emcee. Denzel Curry sounds right at home on the beat, while WSG stumbles, and lazily drawls, all over the track. Abysmal.

“The Revenge of Flips Leg” is probably the best track on the album, and is leveled up due to the awesome Rome Streetz feature.

This album seriously exposes WSG’s ultra basic mic skills. The production sucks for the most part (bar say 2-3 beats), but his inability to flow on time over these trap beats is shocking!. It actually sounds like a beginner has uploaded his own music to Soundcloud.

All in all, this album nearly gets a “BIN JUICE” rating, but it’s saved from that title because it has a few tracks that I’ll definitely be adding to my 2023 playlist, and also for the last track, the title track, which is absolute fire. It also doesn’t have WSG on it. Which, judging by his output on this album, is a serious blessing.

4/10

DJ Alkemy