There’s a wink of irony to the title of EST Gee’s latest album, I Never Felt Nun, which forms a loose trilogy with 2020’s I Dont Feel Nun and I Still Dont Feel Nun, in case you missed the point. The latest project from the Kentucky rapper often plays like a headfirst descent into his most despairing emotions and bleakest experiences. Where fellow Louisville native Jack Harlow, whose co-sign introduced Gee to a larger national audience, aspires toward the kind of pop-rap suited to Super Bowl halftime shows, Gee bleeds his heart out, peeling back the skin to reveal a darker reality in his native city. Alongside high-profile features for Future and Megan Thee Stallion, EST Gee has tapped into a larger network as a new recruit to Yo Gotti’s expanded CMG label—Gee’s relentless hustle and unvarnished emotionality makes for a natural fit alongside profound songwriters like Mozzy and ferocious spitters like 42 Dugg, with whom he released this year’s collaborative Last Ones Left.
Like his home state, Gee’s music sits at a stylistic Mason-Dixon Line, situated between the Bible and Rust Belts, deep fried and industrialized in equal measure. He equally channels the ferocious speed of current Michigan rap, the aching lyricism of Chicago drill, and the bluesy refrains of Southern crooners like Kevin Gates and Rod Wave. There’s a slight Southern twang to the production, with Zaytoven-esque organ trills on “Voices in My Head” and triumphant horns on album closer “The Realest,” a throwback to classic mixtape era trap that caps off with a Jeezy feature. The most surprising regional touch is the appearance from Machine Gun Kelly on “Death Around the Corner,” an unexpected reminder that, long before he was a pop star chasing the clout dragon, MGK was a rageful Ohio-bred Yelawolf knockoff who feuded with Eminem. It’s when he gets back to his roots that Kelly is at his most tolerable, with a more genuine energy than his alt-rock cosplay.
Gee’s delivery carries a sense of purposeful desperation, like he’s rapping not to tell a story or offer wisdom, but to keep breathing. On the opening of “Both Arms,” his gravelly flow is drier than jerky, and he frequently trails off and cracks like his voice is on the verge of giving out. The ad-libs underneath EST Gee’s bars are a non-stop current of mumbles and half-formed syllables, an uncanny counterpoint to his most precise raps that mimic a paranoid stream of thoughts. While others might numb the trauma with substances, Gee more often speaks of death and violence themselves as addictions, unable to imagine life without the bloodlust itself.
At times, bars alone can’t encapsulate the hurt, and Gee’s singing reveals a voice desperate to exorcize and express his emotions. The guitar riff on “Come Home” is emo-tinged, but Gee’s full-throated chorus sounds more like it was ghostwritten by bro-country troubadour Sam Hunt. The pain is obvious and the sentiments impassioned, but the central refrain—“When you come home/Just know I miss you/Like you missing me”—is Gee at his most melodic, suggesting a capacity for emotionally driven anthems beyond raw bars.
There’s a loose religiosity to the album’s themes, evident in titles like “Is Heaven for a Gangsta,” “Hell,” and “Bow and Say Grace.” But just like romance, faith can offer more fear and uncertainty than comfort: “Is there heaven for a shooter/Is there heaven for a mover?/Or was I born in hell and all this shit an illusion?” In his most vulnerable moment, on “Voices In My Head,” EST Gee sings to a friend who took his own life, and as he lies awake in bed praying for release, Gee admits to admiring the “bravery” of the act. Though rap has reached vast new emotional depths in the last decade, Gee’s confessionals are still startling in how bluntly they address the demons head-on. EST Gee’s lyricism doesn’t bring the catharsis of a therapy session or the removed vantage point of hindsight; I Never Felt Nun comes straight from the heart, hardened like armor.
