G-Eazy is at his best when he steps out of the shadows and raps assuredly, and there are signs of that on When It's Dark Out. This all seems like a conscious effort on G-Eazy's part to flesh out his sound into something more dynamic and less one-note, and there are effective tonal shifts, especially the Kehlani-featuring "Everything Will Be OK". There are productions from electronic producer Cashmere Cat, longtime Future cohorts Nard & B, and rap radio regulars KeY Wane and Kane Beatz. Though they do share production credits on "Sad Boy", "Some Kind of Drug", and "Think About You", the beats come primarily from an ensemble cast highlighted by 808 Mafia co-founder Southside, Boi-1da, and DJ Dahi. The majority of These Things Happen was produced by frequent collaborator Christoph Andersson and G-Eazy himself, and it dragged throughout. When It's Dark Out is a marked sonic improvement from his debut. When he's sharing space with someone as engaging as E-40, the holes really start to show. But when he raps, "And fuck it, I'm the coldest white rapper in the game since the one with the bleached hair," on "Calm Down" it somehow feels less like a boast and more like an admission of a shallow field. There's a certain earnestness to his writing, which focuses in on the things he wants-whether that's a Ferrari, a Grammy, or just for his grandmother to stay in her old home-and he's a very capable lyricist. Rapping and being a rapper often feel like chores for G-Eazy, and it can be a chore to listen to him. It's fitting that one of the singles is titled "Sad Boy" because that's the plainest way to express the basic idea of this record: Even something as cool as being famous can be humorless and miserable. Instead, it opts to move cautiously and without jest. His sophomore effort When It's Dark Out makes a lot of the same mistakes: This is a deliberately serious record that refuses to play to his strength, a sharply turning flow that pivots on his buoyant pronunciations, which are naturally comical. It was a decent first offering, but the music had no pulse: It was carefully dressed mannequin rap, standing stiff without feeling. His debut album, 2014's These Things Happen, articulated this identity through the prism of the sounds of the moment: mostly the sadness of Drake and somberness of Kendrick Lamar. But upon closer examination, G-Eazy isn't much like Macklemore at all in fact, he's more like Bizarro Macklemore, a self-serious, self-absorbed swag rapper who shuns the thrifty for the bourgeois. Each artist has taken each painstaking step to address his whiteness (and subsequently how that makes them outliers and commodities all at once) and they both present themselves as very for the culture, a phrase which here means aligned with conservative rap values and in tune with hip-hop culture's history and innermost workings. It will be interesting to see what’s next, but for now it’s time to appreciate When It’s Dark Out.It's easy to write G-Eazy off as a Macklemore that simply grew up further south: He's a white indie rapper from the Bay Area who has built a sizable fan base producing the same kind of sober wordplay, one that carefully articulates individual syllables and slots them into grooves, expressing thoughts in straight lines. G has the potential to make more records in that vein. Is it time to fully embrace fame and everything that comes with it? Is the third album where G will cross over into the mainstream with a big hit single? I really felt like “Downtown Love” was a top 10 Billboard hit, but RCA never pushed it. I have to say, this album quickly has become a personal favorite of 2015.Īs I finished listening to the LP again earlier today, I was left wondering where G-Eazy goes from here.
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Everything he said the album would be is what it turned out to be. When It’s Dark Out is a beautiful, conflicted body of work that finds G-Eazy at his most vulnerable. Certain songs on These Things Happen paved the way for Eazy to fully develop this darker tone. This second offering isn’t much of a departure from the first.
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The music indicates that he was well prepared for this moment, his first two albums fitting together like puzzle pieces.
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Dealing with fame is a full-time job that many fail to translate into amazing art, but G-Eazy doesn’t seem have an issue with it.