In the mid 2010s Yo Gotti’s label CMG stood for “Cocaine Muzik Group,” until 50 Cent told him that the name was “too harsh” and would scare people off—which I took to mean potential investors and fans. That inspired Yo Gotti to tweak the name to the vague and non-threatening Collective Music Group. If I were to guess what Yo Gotti’s dream is, it’s for CMG to be to the 2020s what Quality Control was to the 2010s: A dependable hub for mainstream Southern rap that eventually gets sold to a bigger label for hundreds of millions. So while CMG has a solid roster—new star Glorilla, golden boy Moneybagg Yo, Detroit firecracker 42 Dugg, and the steely Louisville rapper EST Gee—it doesn’t go unnoticed that Gotti is shaping artists into the most palatable and innocuous versions of themselves.
Look no further than EST Gee’s MAD. It’s a relatively by-the-book 14-track album that interrupts his coldblooded, stone-faced raps with wannabe Lil Durk melodies and strips away the regionality of his production in favor of generic “trap” made for the playlist grind. Gee’s breakout 2020 mixtapes Ion Feel Nun and I Still Dont Feel Nun worked because his central location in Louisville allowed him to fold stylistic elements from many Midwestern and Southern cities into relentless raps full of melancholic memories, cruel imagery, and twisted humor. There was Memphis in the bounce. Chicago in the menacing mood. Detroit in the jerky rhythms. Atlanta in the gloss. Baton Rouge in the way he carried himself like a walking wound. With MAD, it’s hard to pin down where Gee is on the map—unless he’s explicitly telling you by jacking T.I.’s singsongy “24’s” flow on “The One & Only” or tapping Boosie for a song called “Hotboys.” It’s hard to feel anything when the music sounds like it’s from nowhere.
The beats are the most glaring problem. Did Yo Gotti accidentally send over the Moneybagg Yo scraps folder? Too many tracks coast on vague familiarity. On “Ball Like Me Too,” the 808s are lifeless, the rhythm is slow, and the Shirley Bassey sample is played out. “If I Stop Now” has a piano-driven groove so plodding that even resident Florida sadboy Rod Wave would say it’s a buzzkill. The flute-led beat of “Slam Dunk” does roughly sound like it could have been on Lil Baby’s It’s Only Me—too bad that’s probably the worst Lil Baby album to be inspired by.
Save for the punchy, drum-fueled burst of “Blow Up” and the smooth elegance of “Us,” this is some of the most uninspired production I’ve heard this year so far. It’s a waste of Gee, who is otherwise still a good rapper with an ability to condense complex emotions and conflicts into just a couple lines. “Lethal injection by the needle, I ain’t forcin’ nothin’ on my people/And they ain’t force it on me neither, we both addicts, so we equals,” he raps as he tries to weigh the effect he had on his community on “Undefeated.” His delivery on the album intro is icy and understated as he reflects on how his mother’s death left a hole in the family. Occasionally he pushes his flow to creative extremes, like on “25Min Freestyle” (which is actually just three minutes), slurring his words so hard that it sounds like he’s rapping with his jaw wired shut.
The singing, though—that will hit you like a jump scare. It’s bad. Gee’s melodic aspirations were a mystifying whiff on last year’s I Never Felt Nun and he’s decided to double down. The knockoff Kevin Gates croons of “Lie to Me Some More” and the Durk-like switch-ups between bullish raps and scarred wails on “Stay Focused” feel forced and unnecessary because they don’t add any new emotion. Gee’s rigid delivery already said so much: the pain, the inner strife is there even when he’s just rapping about having too much cash in his jeans. All the melodies do is make the album feel cleaner, less harsh, easier to categorize. Judging by the origins of the CMG name, that’s on purpose.
