DS4EVER - Gunna: Review
Gunna
is an Atlanta rapper signed to Young Thug's YSL Records label. He broke out a few years ago on a string of features alongside Young Thug and a successful collaborative album between himself and fellow 2018 up and comer Lil Baby. DS4EVER is his 3rd proper studio album and comes two years after his first #1 album Wunna in 2020.
Review By Lav:
I was late to Gunna. When I first heard him on the back of his affiliation with Young Thug I was so sure that his prescence would be a passing fad that I passed on reviewing some of his early mixtapes. It wasn't until his Lil Baby collab Drip Harder which spawned the first big hit of his career that I realized I couldn't ignore him forever. The first highlight of my interaction with Gunna's music and his fans was when an intern from his record label called me "an LGBT" on Twitter and used that as an explanation for why I didn't enjoy Drip or Drown 2 which honestly still makes me laugh to this day. Believe it or not I actually came away from his last album Wunna somewhat optimistic. Even though I didn't think it was very good I did think it was the best project I'd heard from Gunna so far and expected he would build on it. He did not.
This album puts most of its "bangers" on the front end though they are so sleepy and lacking any kind of impressionable qualities that calling them that even feels wrong. private island is the Wheezy produced opening track to the record. It's one of those rap classics where Gunna looks back on promising his girl they were gonna make it. Ever the romantic the way he choses to manifest this is by pointing out that he's still never "fucked her on a private island", great. If you like cum bars this may be your album of the year and mop leads the way with that bar everyone has been talking about where Young Thug delivers "cum on her face, now she looks like a cow".
There's something about the words poochie gown coming out of Gunna's mouth that grosses me out. This is also the song where he takes a "shot" at Freddie Gibbs with the tamest rap diss you can possibly imagine. If he hadn't tried to hype the "beef" up on Twitter nobody would have even noticed or cared about it. pushin p is a competition between Gunna and Future to see who can sound more comatose and somehow they both with. Even then the worst feature on the record goes to Nechie and it honestly isn't even close.
There are a few decent things I can say about this portion of the album. How you did that has a decent Kodak Black feature, in fact I think he's the best part of the song which seems like some kind of miracle. 25k jacket is the most recent Gunna and Lil Baby team up and it is probably among the better of all the songs they've collaborated on. I guess if you're really digging for anything interesting the Metro Boomin beat on alotta cake sounds like he grabbed some royalty free stock synths and changed as little about them as possible but I actually think it's a kind of interesting approach to making something stand out on a record like this.
On the back half of the album Gunna tries his hand at some more serious topics and thematic focus which isn't great but its a drastic improvement from where we started. Livin Wild is the first song on the record in that vein though when Gunna mentions being tired of critics I can't help but say that the feeling is mutual given what I had to sit through at the start of the record. Die Alone is another one of the better songs here with a strong R&B vibe and a Chris Brown feature that is unequivocally the best singing done by anyone on the entire record which is amazing because it's not like Chris is an all time great singer or anything.
Come on guys. If you pay any attention to this record in the forefront of your mind it takes about 30 seconds to wear out. Clearly these songs are predominately made to blend into the background of a playlist and not meant to be listened to one after another for nearly an hour. As someone who did that 3 times in the last week I can say there isn't much I would recommend less. Whatever positive momentum Gunna built up on his last record didn't make it here, but that's obviously intentional. This record will likely do numbers for two weeks before being forgotten completely and it might even have a mid level chart hit, so I suppose in that way you could almost call the record a success relative to its intent. But if you're looking for a compelling album to listen to or good songs that hold up when you're actually paying attention to them, look elsewhere. 3/10
This cover is cool and presents a modern twist on a classic concept. I like the amount of detail that's included and the addition of the text integrated into the concept and not just placed on top of everything. The color palette hits all the boxes of a minimal design and the pop of black in the glasses helps bring it all together. I wish it could have been a little more interesting in the use of texture for the background but overall this is strong and to the point. 7/10
For more trap check out my review of Young Thug's Punk here
