By Alan Ventura
It is often said in the professional sector that timing is everything, and for YSL Records affiliate Gunna, this could not ring more true. His third official solo album DS4EVER marks the fourth installment into the Drip Season canon, the first of which to not be advertised and distributed as a mere mixtape. Such a move symbolizes what I believe to be a major turning point in Gunna’s status as a major player in contemporary hip-hop. The numbers for DS4EVER echo this sentiment, debuting at the number one spot on the Billboard charts the same week as the Weeknd’s critically lauded Dawn FM. Gunna started out 2022 with a bang and was poised to go on a monumental run unforeseen since his influences—had he not been one of the many YSL personnel to be silenced by the RICO charges levied against them in late spring.
It seems as though the most up-to-date project in Gunna’s discography for the foreseeable future will be DS4EVER, and I’m sure that for Gunna fans it’ll serve that function well. As someone who has never been a Gunna fan, however, I can attest that this project certainly didn’t make much of an effort to change my stance.
Granted, DS4EVER isn’t without its brief moments of genuinity like the self-reflection of destructive habits offered on “livin wild” or the ponderance of the strength of relationships on the former portion of the double-track closer “so far ahead > empire.” But when these moments are so few and far between in an neverending sea of nihilistic mutterances, the value of the project as a whole suffers. Even the quality of the LP to this extent varies, ranging from the inoffensive if not incoherent “private island” to the numb-inducing “thought i was playing” to the frankly annoying “flooded.” Mix that with consistently blasé production and directionless guest appearances, and what results is a project that revels in its own lack of substance, justifying its fifty-five-minute runtime with track after track that offers the facade of focus while at the same time refusing to deviate from the one sound it employs that has proven to sell.
It seems like Gunna tried to do a lot with DS4EVER, but in the end, he ends up not doing much. I’m not one to diss the artistic value of music based solely on aesthetics, but it really is projects like this that give the pejorative “mumble rap” credence.
2/5
