Review Summary: MY SWAGS ON OVERBOARD
Enough has been written about Gucci Mane, the slurred Atlantan king of the mixtape game, for anything original to be written in this entire review. He drops killer rhymes, he has great beats, his chain cold, and he’s been improving ever since the Jeezy-featured single “Icey”, and he’s gone from being a rather average MC to one of the best in the mainstream game. 2008’s
Gangsta Grillz: The Movie was theatric in how big it was as a mixtape, packed to the brim with MCs who were paying back DJ Drama for ‘letting him’ do their groceries, and Gucci managed to shine with his elaborate chains enough to finally get some respect in the game. 2009’s
The Movie 2: The Sequel shows Gucci Mane in the aftermath of his fame and his biggest single yet “Wasted”, off of the renowned
Writing on the Wall, which was considered excellent due to the rare mixtape occurrence of being solid from beginning to end.
The Movie 2, however, sounds more like a show off of the So Icey label, and features slightly less Gucci Mane. However,
The Movie 2 is a concrete, great effort from Gucci Mane, featuring some fantastic songs and some filler usually found on mixtapes.
Gucci Mane, here, like he’s been since the first sequel of the
Movie, has been consistently stepping up his game lyrically and beat-wise. Gucci continues in the same subject, and that he’ll obviously never change, but his constant involvement in the mixtape has involved his writings on the same cold subjects sound more genuine and well-done. The punchy drums and bleep bloop synths of “Overboard” create a solid backing for Gucci to go on a word play rampage, reversing the generic Bobby and Whitney reference (“Geeking like Britney, smoking like Whitney/ my prerogative like Bobby on Sixty”), and creates a witty enough hook that’s plenty memorable (“Somebody call the coast guard/Gucci Mane no life guard/ think I need a surf board/ My swag on overboard”) and closes off the song before LA The Darkman has too much of a chance to kill the entire thing. The other big highlight is the glossy synth backdrop of “Awesome”, where Gucci maximizes on his internal rhyme scheme show (“so icy is my company and millions made monthly/managed by my aunt-y, i make a lotta currency/currently increasing g’s, you keep interrupting me (shh!!)/i grinded, grinded, one day blew up suddenly”). In other places, Gucci shows off his improved lyricism, but these two songs show the separated cool Gucci in particular.
The problem with
The Movie 2, though, is the fact that there are so many other artists featured on the disc. While some, like trusted henchmen OJ Da Juiceman, Waka Flocka Flame, Frenchie, and Wooh Da Kid continually prove their worth amongst So Icey, the other artists like LA The Darkman, Shawana, and Snoop Dogg are merely there for the fact that DJ Drama is there. As well, despite the awesome synth beats and lyrics from Gucci, song-wise its rather inconsistent. Though “Overboard” and “Awesome” are truly awesome, for every two songs like that, there’s a song like the obnoxious “Gucci”, which makes the listener truly miss the consistency of
Writing on the Wall. However, the highlights of
The Movie 2, other than the sprawling hit “Wasted”, are much higher than that of
Writing on the Wall, and even with the filler, as an overall experience,
The Movie 2: The Sequel sounds just as good as
Writing on the Wall. For a Gucci fan,
The Movie 2 is great, but be for-warned of DJ Drama’s wild assortment of mediocre henchmen, occasionally hellbent on wrecking the album, and for most other music fans, it’s still worth a listen.
That is, if you do like icey thangs?
