There’s something of a chasm between the respective styles employed by Larry June and 2 Chainz. On one side of the scale sits June as the everyman iconoclast, whose nonchalant approach—spitting simple flexes and straightforward routines over post-hyphy beats and serene loops—barely gets his heart rate above resting. Staring across from him is 2 Chainz as trap’s resident elder statesman, who’s made his bones in the sub-genre wielding his larger-than-life presence with absurdity and spontaneity. So at first, Life Is Beautiful, a collaboration featuring the duo and the Alchemist, seems like an improbable logic problem: an album that seeks to enjoin a square peg with a round hole.
For years now, the Alchemist has been steadily transitioning away from crafting the bone-shuddering boom-bap beats of his early career and toward furnishing dreamscapes with psychedelic loops and minimal effects. It has cemented the Beverly Hills-raised legend as a go-to producer for indie darlings and mainstream stars alike, weaving brilliant albums with Boldy James, Earl Sweatshirt, and Roc Marciano, tinkering and experimenting to tailor to his collaborators’ idiosyncrasies. But Life Is Beautiful’s three-body problem proves to be a tad more difficult. Catering to June’s laid-back temperament, the triumvirate play around in a breezy, luxurious atmosphere (not unlike that of the Alchemist’s sauntering, 2023 EP, Flying High). Yet, the competency can feel a tad underwhelming at times, as though you can feel the meat being left on the bone by the reduced hunger.
On paper, the tranquil churn of Life Is Beautiful is set for June to take reins, yet it’s clear from the very outset that 2 Chainz is the driving force behind the project’s momentum. With a less challenging production environment, June largely rests on his magnetic relatability instead of employing inspired deliveries, causing some of his musings—on picking up bagels with cream cheese or practicing calisthenics, for example—to register as tepid. The onus falls upon 2 Chainz to imbue the record with energy via sparks of hysterical spontaneity. He gleefully boasts about how “intermittent fasting with the burpees” has him slimmed down on “Life Is Beautiful,” and describes requiring two-step verification before embarking upon sexual relations on “Jean Prouvé.” Rarely does that liveliness reach June by osmosis—though when it does, like when the San Francisco rapper blisters through his verse on “Epiphany,” it’s invigorating. In turn, the stretches where 2 Chainz takes his foot off the pedal feel sanded down.
That sort of mundanity represents the other side of the coin for the Alchemist’s recent collaboration albums. When the stakes are lowered, as they are here, Alchemist is more akin to a floor-raiser than the virtuoso who helps MCs shatter expectations, sometimes sacrificing innovation in lieu of quality assurance. Life Is Beautiful is a microcosm of that balancing act, and it pulls it off moderately well, fighting to remain distinct from the gravitational pull of the “Introspective Dad Rap” label that could bulldoze over the music’s intricacies. “Mindin’ my business, drinkin’ water, doin’ crunches/Gettin’ paid for discussions over Alchemist production,” 2 Chainz boasts on “I Been,” pinning his placement over Alchemist beats as a legacy career achievement, a relaxed victory lap that doesn’t ask for more than he’s willing to give.
