Besides their shared affinity for sex, women, and smoking, American rappers Tauheed “2 Chainz” Epps and Dwayne “Lil Wayne” Carter Jr. share a carnal approach to making music such that it would be a struggle to separate the two artists had their careers been launched conjoined by their interests.
It is without any surprise that their relationship in studio has birthed their sophomore collaborative album Welcome 2 ColleGrove, a direct sequel to ColleGrove which they dropped in 2016. The album’s most notable feature is the development of Lil Wayne being formally credited alongside 2 Chainz, whereas on ColleGrove, only the latter was because of label disagreements and squabbles.
Without straying from what Epps and Carter click on the album, their second foray at an album-length duet sees them explore dirty rap with a bar-heavy fest layered over opulent trap and Southern production. Throughout the 21-song spectacle which lasts for 57 minutes, 21 Savage, Rick Ross, Fabulous and Benny the Butcher grace the album with their well-placed features accented by a rich ensemble of hip-hop’s finest producers like Mike Dean, Mannie Fresh, Havoc, Bangladesh, and Hitmaka.
Watch “Long Story Short” here:
Some of the highlights come courtesy of slick pen trickery, particularly on the Havoc-produced “Bars” and “Shame”. With memorable one-liners such as “Snap, crackle, pop, don’t worry, it’s lobster tail”, “Drop off in R time R, not Ford”, and “She a cutie pie, I ate all the crust”, Tunechi and Tity Boi seal some of their songs in the album with straightforward pun-making that brings them together in the valency of simplicity.
Off-kilter moments in the album surface when the pair go off their mucky road in search of sentimentality that erroneously comes off as jarring and downright confusing. “Transparency”, alongside singer Usher, is one such moment. On the song, the two dig deep to spin a ballad that feels more like a plot and a trap for attention rather than an actual song deserving of a place in an album flooded with sexual innuendos, sexual objectification, and a shallow outlook in comparison to other songs within the collection.
All in all, Welcome 2 ColleGrove, as a body of work, is matte compared to the sheeny cockiness evinced by Kanye West and Jay-Z on Watch the Throne, but there’s an echelon of chemistry they touch on the album that The Throne couldn’t ever replicate. Chainz and Wayne may not display politically-charged raps as Run the Jewels, but their skilled wordplay and lyricism imprint deep enough on the psyche to the same effect.
With the album, the pair join the likes of Bad Meets Evil and Drake and 21 Savage in teaming up to put out an album where both artists play to each other’s strengths without necessarily outshining each other.
Listen here:
