Dan Adu-Gyamfi is now on Twitter.
On Halloween, the favorite holiday of all goons, Chiraq native Chief Keef dropped the sequel to the project that made him a star and helped propel the drill movement. Back from the Dead 2 finds Sosa slowly returning to form after dropping two horrendous mixtapes last year.
In the 2008 film Tropic Thunder, Robert Downey Jr.’s character tells Ben Stiller’s character, “You went full retard, man. Never go full retard.” That quote best summarizes what happened to the 19-year-old on his mixtapes Bang Pt. 2 and Almighty So. It seemed on those projects he decided to forgo speaking coherent English and decided to create a new language which only featured slurred Auto-Tuned mumblings. On January 15, the owner of a Compton weed dispensary tweeted “Yes I hate my own last mixtapes cuz I was leaning and mixed them myself! Thought I Was! But I’m back no worries.”
Unlike Back from the Dead where Young Chop produced the whole record, the Glo Gang general decided to expand his artistic palate and start producing himself. On 16 of the 20 songs, Keef made the beat. While most sound like Chop knockoffs, some are surprisingly good (i.e. “Where’s Waldo”, “Wayne” and “Smack DVD”).
His content remains the same — drug use, gang life, the murdering of foes, sleeping with promiscuous women and balling like he’s the reincarnation of the Big Tymers. The only feature on the mixtape is Gucci Mane on “Papers,” which is also on their collaborative effort Big Gucci Sosa. Keef’s flow has changed compared to previous works. His calm, stoic style has been replaced with a more energetic cadence and Auto-Tune only appears on his producer tag: “Sosa on the beat.” Lean no longer seems to be a hindrance to the GBE boss, but poor mixing is still an issue. At least people will understand what he’s saying again.
On Back from the Dead 2, he doesn’t reach the heights he did on the original or his debut album Finally Rich. It’s mostly due to the lack of production from Young Chop, who gifted Keef two beats here. The 20-year-old’s chemistry with Keef is perfect, as they always seem to find the balance between making catchy records that are melodic and nihilistic at the same time. Sosa’s attempt to produce hints at the desire to improve as an artist while creating what he feels will make him better.
Interscope recently dropped Keef, so projects from Fredo Santana’s cousin will continue to pour out. For now he plans on releasing four more projects in three months: Mansion Musick on November 28, Bang 3 on Christmas, UFOverload 2 on New Year’s Day and Thot Breaker on Valentine’s Day. With no label in his way, Keef seems to be attempting to mimic the prolific mixtape runs Gucci and Lil Wayne went on in the mid-to-late 2000s. It’ll be interesting to see if Sosa can improve as both a producer and rapper. With all of those projects on the way, he’ll have a lot of practice.
