t this time last year, YG was struggling to get anyone excited about his debut album. A former teen rapper from L.A.’s jerkin’ scene who blew up on MySpace, he was picked up by Def Jam in 2009 and quickly scored the minor hit “Toot It & Boot It.” But by early 2013, his major-label debut seemed doomed, already three-plus years in the making with no sign of release. And yet somehow, here we are:
YG has made the undisputed best album of the first half of 2014;
a modern gangsta rap classic.
Released during the first week of spring,
My Krazy Life felt like a gust of fresh air. It’s a loose concept album that follows a day in the life of YG as he navigates the highs and lows of his Compton—excuse me, Bompton—experience. He opens the album by narrating his initiation into the Tree Top Pirus on “BPT,” a scene where he was forced to fight back after getting jumped by four gang members: “'Hamad threw a right—
duck—hit him with the left—
bop-bop!/Two to the chin—
bop!—one to the chest/One to the ribs, the haymaker didn't connect/Dropped him but didn't stomp him ’cause that's disrespect.” From there, he’s off.
YG isn’t the most flowery MC, but he’s got a dark sense of humor, an audacious attitude, and an eye for detail that make him an engaging rapper. For example, on the step-by-step home invasion lesson “Meet the Flockers,” he advises the listener/robber-in-training to “find a Chinese neighborhood, ’cause they don’t believe in bank accounts.” And while he mentions that his own “Bank of America account got six figures” (on the Drake duet “Who Do You Love?”), YG generally avoids grandiose boasting about wealth, focusing instead on the struggle and life’s simple pleasures. He’s even working the angles on his strip club anthem “Left, Right,” where he jokes, “I ain't trippin' baby girl, make that money!/Cause if I fukk her right, she just might give some to me!”
gansta rap classic these days brehs
