Philadelphia rap is undergoing a generational shift. Despite all the tabloid drama, Meek Mill remains the city’s biggest star, rapping with the emotional intensity of hometown legend Beanie Sigel, but with a honed ability to land crossover hits. Yet the city’s two up-and-coming stars operate completely outside the street-vs.-pop divide that Meek observes so carefully. Lil Uzi Vert is a bratty rockstar that cannot write a bad hook and and PnB Rock wields a rapper-turned-singer swagger. Meek Mill rapped on Philly street corners and committed years to the mixtape grind, where this new wave was scooped up early by major labels, landing on success that took years for Meek to achieve.
PnB Rock went from catching regional buzz with post-prison freestyles in 2014 to signing with Atlantic Records the following year. In that short time, Fetty Wap, another rapper-turned-singer from the Tri-State area, emerged and crossed over with numerous Top 40 pop hits (“Trap Queen,” “679”). Last year they released a joint mixtape, Money, Hoes, and Flows that highlighted Fetty Wap’s charming vocal quirks set against PnB Rock’s more conventional singing voice.
GTTM: Going Through The Motions, PnB Rock’s major-label debut, carefully balances his malleable interpretations of both R&B and street rap. “Range Rover” fits a boastful trap mold (“Rollie all on my wrist/Bitch I ball no assist/Smoking weed by the zip/Whole squad yeah we lit”), but his smooth delivery pushes the song closer to acoustic Ty Dolla $ign than Migos. On the other side of the spectrum is “Notice Me,” where Rock pines for a second of a woman’s time, whose attention is buried in social media. The sentiment can feel like Drake-style shaming, but his words are empathetic when he wistfully sings: “In your hand all day, on the ’gram all day/You been tweeting, snapchatting/And I feel like I just got to ask you/Do you notice me?” PnB Rock’s delivery convey a simple a desire to find a romantic middle ground more than chauvinistic condemnation.
Song-by-song, GTTM is a charming debut, but when viewed as complete album it falls fairly flat. It opens on a sour note with the Wiz Khalifa-featuring “Attention.” Yet instead of the suave Kush and OJ Wiz, we get the boastful Cabin Fever version, full of to turgid go-nowhere cliches (“Whole lotta weed getting rolled in a paper plane/Whole lotta bitches scream my name”). Either of the following tracks—“There She Go,” “Playa No More,” and “Selfish”—would have been stronger introductions, potential hits that also offer clear introductions to PnB Rock’s worldview.
Unfortunately, tracklisting issues dog the album to its closing seconds. “New Day,” produced by frequent Lil Uzi Vert collaborator Maaly Raw, is buried as the penultimate track, where it could’ve added a bit of energy to the album’s tepid middle section. The album closes with “Stand Back,” an aggressive, calculated classic piece of East Coast street rap featuring Bronx up-and-comer A-Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. The pair share a natural chemistry, but there are no sparks here as the two jockey to see who can act the hardest. Fans in a post-iTunes streaming world can easily cull the best songs, but it’s unfortunate the album places that burden on them. Still,PnB Rock shows more than enough heart and talent; pick through the missteps, and there's still a good new artist here, someone capable of more.
