In 2000, Shawn Carter releases "Dynasty", an album released with his Roc La Familia. First in the pop chart and immediate double platinum, it's the fourth consecutive album to go platinum and the third to chart first in the Billboard 200. People and insiders begins to wonder where all this success comes from and rediscovers "Reasonable Doubt", elevating it to the classic status.
Born in 1983, son of one of the darkest cities in the Empire State, Alvin Worthy grew up in the crime side, the New York Times side, focusing mainly on fashion before converging on music when thug life is starting to become unsustainable, taking us back to the atmosphere of "Reasonable Doubt", just before the release of that legendary debut. When he releases his debut studio album, he has provided short records and must prove he can hold an entire album: he comes from an EP, three editions of his mixtape series "Hitler Wears Hermes" and a tape produced together with his friends at the mid-2000s that was never officially released until the beginning of January 2020. In addition, together with his brother Conway the Machine and Daringer, he founded the Griselda Records label.
The rapper shows up with some of the best producers — Statik Selektah, The Alchemist, Roc Marciano, Apollo Brown, as well as Camouflage Monk and Tha God Fahim — and some of the best MCs in the circuit — Danny Brown, Roc Marciano, Mach-Hommy, Action Bronson, Meyhem Lauren and Skyzoo, in addition to the Buffalo rappers Conway and Benny — demonstrating that he has an extraordinary personality, aiming to build an ambitious album to make the definitive leap in quality in the game. The record presents one of the best soundscapes of the year, thanks above all to Daringer's production: he manages to recreate an ethereal, sublime and elegantly vintage atmosphere, using different celestial, dark and melancholic soulful samples, together with different sections of extraordinarily agile strings and rhythms, graceful and clean, naive. This perfect music adapts perfectly to the raw and high-pitched voice of Westside Gunn, who manages to impart his energy in the project with a slow, velvet, raw and edgy flow, keeping the tension and the dark mood of the album throughout the hour with a series of lyrics that at times draw inspiration from his personal criminal experience with a fragmented storytelling and braggadocio, drug and thug bars mixed together wisely without granting a defined theme to the individual cuts and taking the freedom to go a little where he wants.
Westside Gunn rewrites another chapter of the criminal poetry inspired by Kool G Rap, bringing you back to the classic atmosphere of New York in the mid-nineties, without practically making a mistake in this hard and pure opera omnia: the production is sublime, the rapping (also that one of guests) is impeccable, rough, tight and dirty, the skits are solid and fun and his adlibs are limited. "Flygod" is an excellent, bold, aggressive and elegant project, which lives in the power of details, is an authentic fresh and raw street rap document, which lives in the hip hop scene between the explosion of "Only Built" and the arrival silent of "Reasonable Doubt", claiming the legacy of both: when the discography of one of the best East Coast and hardcore exponents of the period will finally be rediscovered, time will confirm it as one of the highlights of the hip hop of the decade and one of the most influential albums of his time for the immense impact it had on the underground scene, a classic of mafia rap.
Digression on the single "Mr. T".
When the rhythm starts, you already know it's a classic. Apollo Brown opens with an extraordinary and captivating soul sample of Smith Connection's "Under My Wings", this sample isn't even touched; the beatmaker accompanies it with the wonderful sound of vinyl, releasing an ethereal, splendid midtempo rhythm with a perfect and silent drums and chops the sample on the chorus in order to make it seem that the group is saying "I'm Flyyyy-god"; here, Apollo Brown is simply brilliant, leaving this phrase looped in the background, while Westside Gunn pulls down two thug and lucid braggadocio-mafia verses with a calm and spectacular style, simplistic rhyming patterns functional to his best flow ever, always smoothness, always dope, up to the short chorus, simple and genial, fantastic tribute to Nas' "One Mic" ("one brick, one brick / all I need is one brick"), wonderful. It's not just the first single on the album — and the title track — it's a symbolic gem of the world that Griselda wants to import into the rap game, it's an anthem, a timeless masterpiece.
Rating: 9.6/10.
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