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In hip hop, a title doesn’t necessarily mean everything for a release. For veteran rapper Young Deuces, though, he uses it to capture the essence of his latest album, All I Wanted Was An Opportunity. Beyond the album’s name, tracks like “Always Had It Hard,” “Grass Ain’t Greener” and “Sacrifices” lets you know exactly what the project is about before you press play. With that preface, it isn’t hard to envision what it might sound like.
To his credit, Deuces raps like a person who is living his lyrics with total conviction. Set to moodier production, every verse addresses a different aspect of having a difficult upbringing, and seizing the moment whenever there was a bit of light to absorb. On “Breathe,” he compares what is going on in his music to influential artists like 2pac, Notorious B.I.G. and Wu-Tang Clan living out their truths in classic tracks. Those artists pulled the curtain back to their worlds, much like how Young Deuces ensures that Opportunity is free of any hip hop façade.
“The content on this album was more about my life than anything. Specifically, everything that I did to get to this point” said Deuces. “I started thinking about my music career. I always wanted to be the person that put the city on. I always wanted to bring money back to the city. I’ve always wanted an opportunity to be great, or part of a greater cause, so I thought that was the perfect name for this album.”
Young Deuces first made a significant mark on hip hop over a decade ago, as part of the duo Streetz-N-Young Deuces. A quick rise to notoriety saw them in some of hip hop’s biggest publications, and putting out tracks with the likes of national emerging artists Trae Tha Truth and Mickey Factz. While they haven’t put out a group project since 2016, both Deuces and Burgie Streetz remain active, and they continue to collaborate, as is the case with “Black Sheep” on the new project.
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“Burgie and I played the industry game a lot” explains Deuces. “All of our projects had a different sound. Towards the latter half of us putting out music, we decided to put out music that we felt like putting out. The growth came from that. He’s my blood cousin. It’s still Streets-N-Young Deuces all day.”
The rest of 2021 shows no signs of slowing down for Young Deuces. In addition to putting out music, he also stays busy as a host of the Geekset podcast as well. You can check out All I Ever Wanted Was An Opportunity on all streaming services right now.
