2 Chainz is having quite the 2017 and what better way to capitalize on the music you’ve been dropping than to drop your fourth studio album to tide the Summer over with? Pretty Girls Like Trap Music is a cool, steady, and solid album that cements 2 Chainz as one of the best rappers out because the man doesn’t miss on this album at all. 2 Chainz takes us through sixteen tracks of his past and what’s life like for him now and beneath the music is 2 Chainz getting listeners into trap music while giving us something different that sticks to his guns.
We open the album up with the electrifying Saturday Night that never strays away from the electric guitar stringing in the background. It’s a foreboding type of intro and remains relevant over the album itself. He’s doing a very serious balancing act of detailing the streets and what comes after. It’s all 2 Chainz over the strings as he raps about he goes back and forth of detailing the life behind the trap music and there are some interesting lines across Saturday Night. “Luda charged me just to dip, was there when Chaka was swung on by Tip” It’s his life on the tables and it’s the start of a personal journey across sixteen tracks. Riverdale Rd creeps up behind you like a Horror Movie should when the song starts. It doesn’t let up the Mano production as 2 Chainz rides the beat with precision all the while letting us know small tidbits about himself. “Riverdale, he was there, she was there, you wasn’t there I was the same ol’ nigga Yeah that trap had raised a nigga How could you blame a nigga?” The back half finds him breaking out into a bridge that sounds like a warning for curious cats before setting back into a rhythm that changes the beat yet again and then reverts to the original Halloween beat with ease. 2 Chainz can float no matter the occasion.
Good Drank features Gucci Mane and Quavo and it digs into a more mellow and relaxed form with the Southern Trio all equally adding to the song that keeps things relatively calm and collected. The highlight of the track is easily Quavo fitting in a line about Harambe (RIP). 4 AM featuring Travis Scott was one of the singles leading up to the album and in context of the album it picks up the speed with the upbeat and 2 Chainz continued ability to ride the beat and at different speeds. Personal lines and accounting for his past in drugs helps balance out the hypnotic and bouncy tune that 4 AM is, Travis making the chorus his own while 2 Chainz gives us some quotable lines and a switched approach to the rhyme scheme ending every line with an ooh will have you nodding and swaying until the song is over. Door Swangin could’ve featured any number of rappers on it because it keeps a generally basic tone and has a chorus that can fit as someone’s daily mantra “Another day we gotta get it, ‘notha day we gotta get it” and the album slows to a crawl with Realize featuring Nicki Minaj. Realize is a quieter song with 2 Chainz rapping over the beat that let’s the two rappers simply rap. We get a line about 2 Chainz views on the government and mumbling and Nicki in her natural state of flexing and making accomplishments sound witty and stylish.
Poor Fool picks up the speed and rhythmic nature in the songs and throws in some haunting Swae Lee vocals to give off an eerie that makes the other half of Rae Sremmurd come off as a ghost coming into contact with 2 Chainz with a warning as he raps in the nighttime tinged production. We then go into the two songs Big Amount and It’s A Vibe that in the flow of the album goes into a left field of sorts given how both these songs deviate from the trap heavy first set of songs and gives the album some levity and lightness with the features. We’ve heard Big Amount on 2 Chainz mixtape “Daniel Son; Necklace Don” and It’s A Vibe was a single recently released prior to PGLTM. Drake on Big Amount represents hard for Atlanta tuning into his rap and cooler persona and Ty Dolla $ign, Trey Songz, and Jhené Aiko settle things down with the sensual and lowkey single that gives some variety sprinkled into the album.
A strange sound hits your ears as Rolls Royce Bitch plays…it’s old time with country drums from the trap. It comes off as a outro song as 2 Chainz continues to hit every beat on the album in perfect sync. The hook is something you have to yell at the top of your lungs as you party or ride in the car. The more experimental production works in his favor showing his versatility and willingness to leave the trap for the album. Sleep When U Die will have you doing anything but as the song starts with an “ayy, ayy, ayy, ayy Young Juice, ayy, ayy, okay, okay” 2 Chainz is slow to start but gets aggressive and even rhymes along with the Oj da Juiceman at a point in the song. The sampling continues with Trap Check intro stemming from Jeezy’s “Get Ya Mind Right”. This song serves as a montage for when you have a ton of cash to blow, he’s flowing across the board as it gets repetitive but not enough to get overbearing. The song makes you feel like the biggest baller in the South if you play it in the right scenario and if you have a keen enough ear you’ll hear ASAP by T.I playing as the song begins to end.
Migos bring their signature style to Blue Cheese that makes this song one of the highlights on the album. The beat giving off an airy, lackadaisical feel and the Migos each doing their part from the hook to the chorus makes the song seem like a Migos song that 2 Chainz grafted onto the album, and that’s okay. OG Kush Diet is the type of a song that goes inside of itself, it’s off the beaten path and more quirky with an energetic 2 Chainz rapping about painting the White House and that’s before the beat to the Caribbean and 2 Chainz never skipping a beat before returning back home production wise. The unorthodox levels to PGLTM continues into Bailan featuring Pharrell. 2 Chainz and the happiness that this track exudes is unmatched! It’s feel good club music with Pharrell giving angelic type production suiting both himself and 2 Chainz. It’s not aiming for pop territory, remaining in the Rap zone and has 2 Chainz making his home inside the music no matter the type or occasion. We’ve reached the end of the album with Burglar Bars and it feels like we’ve experienced a whirlwind night with 2 Chainz and he’s finally getting his act together in time for the final song with Monica. It’s gospel, no heavenly production from beginning to end and this is him at his most open and personable. The intro, voiced by Louis Farrakhan sets the tone for the song very much so. From there it’s 2 Chainz and Monica working together to provide the best example of Gospel/Soulful Trap. It’s a powerful ending to a worthwhile album and words can’t express the emotion and feeling that 2 Chainz puts on Burglar Bars, just an awesome ending to an album that displays why 2 Chainz is one of the best out.
Pretty Girls Like Trap Music is 2 Chainz at his best. He’s taking risks, stumbles along some tracks where it stalls the energy of the album but nothing to extreme to ruin the album overall. On his fourth outing, 2 Chainz reinvigorates himself and recognizes where he’s been as an artist and where he’s going. He’s given Atlanta an album to blast all Summer long for all occasions and stands in the pantheon of Atlanta Rappers as one of the best to do it and shows there’s energy still left to be found in what he can do in this ever changing landscape of hip-hop and rap.
Grade: B+
