From its crudely Photoshopped cover to its incessant DJ Holiday drops and erratic sound levels, Gucci Mane’s Burrrprint(2) HD is unmistakably a mixtapelittle distinguished%uFFFDfrom the half dozen or so the rapper offered for free last yearbut Warner Bros. is nonetheless giving the release a full promotional push, capitalizing on the incarcerated rapper’s breakout 2009. The label is flooding the market: Gucci’s last album, The State Vs. Radric Davis, was released just last December, and still has legs on the charts, while an ad on Burrrprint(2)’s inner sleeve promises yet another new Gucci album, The Appeal, “COMING SUMMER 2010.” Pity the consumer who throws down $13.99 for Burrrprint(2) only to see they could have waited a couple more months for a real Gucci album instead of a mixtape mostly compiled from the rapper’s pre-prison-sentence leftovers. Pity that consumer even further when they learn a follow-up to The Appeal, The Verdict, is also already rumored for release this year.
As much as it pains me to recommend a release so exploitativethis is music that was meant to be distributed for freeBurrrprint(2) mostly lives up to its excellent predecessor, The Burrrprint (The Movie 3D), offering similarly bombastic, bargain-bin beats and heaping quantities of Gucci’s unassumingly brilliant wordplay. As usual, Gucci raps as if he’s got a mouth full of lobster and doesn’t want to spit any on his microphone, but his flow isn't lethargic so much as it is measured. At a time when today’s biggest rappers highlight even the slightest wordplay with histrionic inflections to hit home how damn clever they areDrake being the guiltiest offenderGucci refuses to play up his punchlines. If anything, he hides them, burying them deep in his slothy drawl, where they lay waiting to reward listeners who dig for them.
“Money never limited,” Gucci raps, his next bar indecipherable muffled. “My driveway need a passport, all my cars are all immigrants.” He could go on forever about his cars. Sometimes he does.
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“Now my Benz is on shineys,” he raps. “But my Donk is on crutches/ The Hummer's on eights just to make your ___ thirsty/ Outside now is a Cutlass on butlass/ It got so much pound ya girl eardrum busted/ A schoolboy Chevy and the rims are all mustard/ A ’66 muscle that is spinning down custard/ The lamp in Morley Plasma needed more bubbles/ Tidin’ tinted windows cuz my fanbase double/ I drop the top in the summer, ____ in trouble/ before the door slam my ’74 burnt rubber/ Next light I seen the chick, candy red rover/ Pulled up, let the window down, pull over.”
