Written Before Listen
Roddy Ricch is back with a new release, but this time It came out in late 2021. From what I’ve heard from Roddy, I enjoy his music. I don’t love it or anything but he has very passionate melodies and he seems to choose substance over style occasionally. Alongside that, he also has some street bravado you could only get in a place like Compton. Well, he’s back after 2 years with a new project, and let’s hope that time was well spent.
Influences
As melodic trap goes, Roddy Ricch leads a little closer to R&B than most. A lot of his vocal inflections usually are more passionate than usual. Think of Young Thug with the flows of Future and Meek Mill, the occasional Kanye flashes, production choices of Lil Uzi and Chief Keef with some Gucci Mane. On this album, on the other hand, he seems to tone down the passionate inflections as the Young Thug influences are gone and the influences sound more generic. He’s kind of toned down his style and sometimes that’s a good thing, but not on this record.
Production
Roddy Ricch’s production choices were never his strong suit but the producers do try to make good songs. When it comes to Roddy’s best music, Roddy is the highlight, but his performances showcase the underwhelming production more. The best beat on this album is easily “late at night” as Mustard always knows how to produce for Roddy. Wheezy has a couple of beats on here but none of them hit the same way Wheezy’s best music does. On “Thailand”, Southside comes with a strong beat as he brings his usual trap banger style. On “All good”, Ronny J appears with one of his more generic beats. On “paid my dues” we have one of my favorite modern producers Boi-1da come along but he doesn’t do anything with this beat or this song that stops me out of my tracks. When it comes to the other producers, I liked the fusion-influenced intro on “moved to Miami” but everything else is just generic trap music.
Effort
Now let’s go to my biggest complaint, Roddy Ricch. What happened in the past 2 years? He sounds like he just stopped trying. Almost every performance almost made me fall asleep. I deadass fell asleep on “man made”. I didn’t have any notes because I was too busy sleeping. The only thing I can say positive about Roddy’s performance is that it sometimes fits the vibe of a late-night cruise but that’s about it, Roddy solidifies himself as a generic trap artist, and it’s super unfortunate.
Features
Since Roddy can’t reach a peak performance level, the features have to kill it. Unfortunately, that is far from the case. There are only two features that I enjoyed. The 21 Savage feature on “hibachi” is pretty cool but it’s overshadowed by two terrible performances by Roddy and Kodak. I also liked Gunna’s performance “don’t I” way more than I expected to and I guess Lil Baby’s feature on “moved to Miami” was nice but I was already disappointed by the terrible drum switch. Ty Dolla Sign was ok but all he does is vocal parts, Takeoff comes and goes, Future is the same and so is Fivio Foreign. I feel like everyone was super tired on this album
Favorite Tracks
Well, I did like the interludes as they were nocturnal and beautiful. “Thailand” was not a terrible track and “don’t I” was kind of a vibe, but the only track I actually enjoyed was “late at night” and even then, it’s too late on the album for me to even care. Yeah…It seems like Roddy Ricch lives life sleepy
Verdict
God damn, this was tiring. This album wasn’t even extremely long either, it was like 50 minutes. Some albums are over an hour in length that feels like 30 but this album felt like 3 hours. I, unfortunately, don’t see myself revisiting this.
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