Chief Keef may have turned over the engine for Chicago’s drill scene in the 2010s, but plenty of rappers have since taken the wheel and pushed the sound forward. Lil Durk set the standard for drill, building Keef’s mumbling into a cohesive cadence and adding a new element: an intensely detailed style of singing that made the simple acts of spilling his feelings to a woman or wiping blood out of a rug into 3D portraits. Lil Zay Osama brings a similar haunted level of scrutiny to his sophomore project, Trench Baby. Though the record is traced off Lil Durk’s blueprint, Zay offers a glimpse of what makes him unique, relaying emotions instead of scribbling sketches of bloodshed.
After an extended stint in juvenile detention, Zay got serious about music in 2017. Two years later, his ragged debut Hood Bible became an Auto-Tuned manifesto for the streets and proved what Lil Zay could accomplish in quieter moments, with reflective music that felt more sorrowful about the past than anchored by tall tales. On Trench Baby, this meekness takes the stage with pensive keys and muted melodies that go down easier than before. “Shooters” stresses the emotional toll of being caught in shootouts with former childhood friends. “We’ll Be Straight” succeeds, not just because of G Herbo’s frantic search for happiness within his own memories, but because of Zay’s wide-lens approach to constructing scenes of the past so that listeners can fill in the frame.
Whereas Durk distanced himself from drill with intricate, violent world-building, Lil Zay is still learning how to sketch his own. He’s not rapping in 3D like Durk, but he does offer enough detail to draw a comic book panel. “Niggas get to tweakin’, we don’t think first, we just splat, splat/And I slimed plenty niggas out, I could say slatt, slatt,” he raps on “61st to 64th.” Still, guest features like Doe Boy and Jackboy only exacerbate Zay’s lyrical weaknesses. More often than not, his violent talk sounds like filler. With earnest singing that trades in menacing grit for emotional moans, “Ride for Me” is a shining example of when speaking from the heart enables Zay to create his own blueprint. On “Ex Bitch,” he comes alive, spitting daggers about a woman who missed her chance to be his side chick amid his rise.
When Lil Zay tries to reconstruct crime scenes with lifeless scene-building, the results lack the gravity of his more therapeutic songs. On Trench Baby, he shows the most promise when he dials it down and focuses on how his emotions have shaped and dictated his current reality.
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