Gucci Mane aka Guwop aka La Flare aka Wizop aka Wilt Chamberlain aka DropTopWopSr, will not be stopped.
Mere months after blessing us with The Return of East Atlanta Santa, Gucci links up with Metro Boomin and creates DropTopWop.
This is also the first tape released since I saw Gucci live in concert, which was damn near a religious experience me.
A lot has been made of Gucci's transformation, where he was once a cold blooded criminal who craved violence, he's now a happily engaged man with an ice cream cone tattoo'd on his face. People were worried that this would have a negative effect on his music and I can now say...kinda but not really.
DropTopWop is interesting because you can hear in the beats how excited Metro is to work with Gucci. All of the beats are spooky and devious, like this is the shit Jason Vorhees would listen to before he sold dope. This really is the best I've ever heard Metro, and there in lies the problem.
The beats are evil, but Gucci isn't.
Gucci is like Cutty from the Wire, he came up a vicious criminal but now he's not, all he wants to do is support the next generation and teach them to learn from his mistakes. Metro gave Gucci beats expecting him to rap explicit drug raps, Gucci plays his part but you can tell he's not living that life anymore.
It's weird because every criticism I have of this album is really just a testament to how good of a person Gucci is. Like I want to hear "I'm ruining my life with untreated PTSD" Gucci, not "I'm getting my life on track" Gucci.
When Gucci raps about fucking hoes and selling dope you can legit see him walk out the booth to his fiancee's waiting arms like "baby you know these are just raps right? I'm never going back". I'm super happy for him and I enjoy the music but its just not the same.
You can really see this disconnect when Offset raps on Met Gala. Offset raps his ASS off on Met Gala, like you can tell Offset is still young and reckless, like "don't let the flex fool you I will pistol whip the shit out of you". It's awesome.
Gucci delivers on Met Gala but it's clear that he's more keen on giving Metro and Offset the platform to succeed. Gucci is the facilitator, while he loves rapping, he loves seeing people get better at rapping.
Gucci rapping on these Metro beats is like a proud dad watching his son hit his first lick. It gives you a real warm fuzzy feeling.
Overall, I like this album a lot, Gucci raps well and says slick shit but Metro's beats make me wish fat, drug addicted, case catching, Jeezy hating pistol toting Gucci could give us some bars.
I give this 5 Gucci Mane Nicknames out of 6.