Gucci Mane - Woptopber II [2019]

I’d like to think you can’t be a “true fan” of someone unless you’ve heard at least 75% of their discography. However, if this in fact were true, there wouldn’t be a single true Gucci Mane fan on the planet, because his catalog is bigger than almost any serious artist in Hip-Hop. As for myself, I am most definitely not a true fan of Guwop, but I’ve listened to my fair share of his projects. After he was released from prison, Everybody Looking had me thinking I had been missing something, since I really enjoyed that project; but it wasn’t until DropTopWop that I decided Gucci Mane was more than a joke, and deserved respect as a legend in the game. But after that Metro Boomin tape, I feel like Gucci hit a rut, and the subsequent six (maybe seven?) projects felt predictable and stale. The original Woptober mixtape was highlight of the run, notable for a uniform chilliness in the instrumentals, and a slightly more animated Gucci than we had seen post-prison. This newest tape, Woptober II, is not a return to this sound, but feels more like a celebration of the things that have made Guwop successful since he got out: his great team of beatmakers that are behind him, his humorous deliveries and lyrics, and his deep connections in the game that allow him to make songs with almost anyone he wants.

Woptober II is a sequel to this mixtape, one of many Gucci album covers that prompts a swift BURR

Whenever you hear “GUUCCCIIIiiiii” on track, you normally aren’t filled with excitement as much as you are with contentment; you know that what you’re about to hear isn’t wack, it works, and sometimes can be fun to listen to. The thing you have to remember when listening to Gucci Mane that might allow you to understand why he’s so respected is the sheer volume of music this dude puts out. With how many thousands of verses Gucci had put out, and how many thousands still remain on a hard-drive somewhere, and how 99% of his material is freestyled in the booth, AND how he can crank out a track in 10 minutes, a certain level of genius is displayed in just being able to operate this way. He isn’t a top 100 lyricist, but he has charisma and presence that few emcees have, and certain level of credibility that allows his trapping tales to not come across as corny. Woptober II changes absolutely none of this, for what you will find on the album is merely Gucci doing Gucci. There are a few moments when his verses will impress, like on Big Boy Diamonds and Wop Longway Takeoff, but he falls into his comfort zone on all other cuts here.

A huge part of what makes Woptober II special are the instrumentals, which, as I said, are brought by a long list of both Gucci Mane mainstays and top-tier producers in today’s mainstream. Zaytoven has always been Gucci’s righthand man production-wise, and he make some appearances here: his beat on Last Night is weiiirrrd as fuck, with thin synth notes and super cluttered percussion, reminding me of the original Tron. His other beat on here, Bucking the System is another classic Gucci banger, smooth as hell with its crisp drums and keyboards. It sounds exactly like a beat Gucci would have used a few years ago…. Well that’s because it is in fact a beat he’s used before, on Out Do Ya off of Everybody Looking. Normally, this is a no-no to me, buuuuut the track unfolds in a different way on Woptober II, and the Kevin Gates feature is too fire to discount the track because of the instrumental. If you want to talk about old Gucci collaborators, Lex Luger on Richer than Errybody comes up with the best beat the album had to offer, with its wild alien synths that have that old Datpiff mixtape feel to them. London on the Track is another star here, who continues to cement himself as one of the best producers around today with his sensual vocal chop and unusual drum patterns; the unorthodox drums on the track causes Gucci to change it up too, dropping one of his most engaging verses on the album. A newer cat, J. White (who’s claim to fame is Cardi B’s Bodak Yellow), shows some serious knowledge of Guwop’s sound, crafting the strip-club banger Big Booty with it’s claps and high-speed guitar strums, and Move Me, which sound like it came straight out of the 2008 traphouse with it’s super thick piano notes and trap drums. It’s not all sun and rainbows though, with Quay Global and Tay Keith providing by the numbers trap beats (Keith’s does slap though), and Metro Boomin coming through with a stone-fucking-dead instrumental that is totally lifeless.

I love this aesthetic, but what the fuck did they do to my boy DaBaby? Looks like a 4th grader drew a white version of him and sprinkled cocoa powder on it.

Something that you can usually count on with a Gucci Mane project are the features, and Woptober II is no exception to this. People seem to recognize that collaborating with Wop is important and will bring their A game to show respect. Kodak Black and Megan Thee Stallion run the tracks that they’re on, almost feeling like it’s their tracks in the process. Yung Mal continues to show why Gucci was smart in signing him, but although I love OJ da Juiceman’s verse (yes, *that* Juiceman), I don’t feel like he fits the chemistry of the track. The biggest criticism I have of the album, which is a minor thing in the grand scheme, is that some of the features are a little *too* brief. DaBaby kills his feature, but he obviously could have gone on for much longer, especially since Youngboy NBA runs the rest of the track. The most egregious instance of this is Wop Longway Takeoff, with Peewee Longway barely having an appearance, and Takeoff somehow having even less of a presence rapping for literally 10 seconds in the middle of Longway’s verse. This could have been a Guwop classic if it was expanded and left me hella disappointed. Kevin Gates is the feature highlight on Woptober II, much like he was on Evil Genius, going in for over a minute with his autotune accented coke raps. Lil Baby and Quavo do what they do, but they probably could have been left off their tracks (and to be honest Tootsies could have been left off entirely).

So what are we left with at the end of Woptober II? We’re left with what I think most of us are left with after every Gucci project: contentment. However this time I think he tightened the screws, trimmed the fat in the tracklisting, and delivered an easily digestible record with a good spread of features and true to form Gucci beats. I would expect at this point it’s pretty easy to recommend this album by following the simple rule: if you like Gucci, you’ll like this, and if you don’t, this (and realistically anything he’ll ever put out) will not change your mind. If you’re down with post-prison Gucci like I am, this project will tickle your fancy. After all, October doesn’t *officially* start until you hear BURR.

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