Rich the Kid is always in the right place at the right time. Back in 2012, he was introduced to Migos in a club, and they hit it off. By the following year, the Atlanta trio would be the first signees of Quality Control, have a hit single (“Versace”)—which grew so big that Drake hopped on the remix—and they’d drop one of the most definitive Southern rap mixtapes of the 2010s (Y.R.N.). Through all this, Rich tagged along, becoming their unofficial fourth member through two collaborative mixtapes, which weren’t that good—but the timing was perfect. Again and again, Rich would be in proximity to rappers who were much more interesting than he was at the ideal moment: Kodak Black and Playboi Carti right before they became household names; Famous Dex and Jay Critch around the time of the overlooked group mixtape Rich Forever 3; YoungBoy Never Broke Again when Rich somehow convinced YB to do a joint mixtape. I suppose Rich deserves credit for his ability to spot talent, but he’s been able to survive in rap through sheer persistence and networking.
His latest venture is Trust Fund Babies, a collaborative mixtape with Lil Wayne; and of course, given Rich’s combination of dumb luck and business savvy, it arrives amid a so-called Wayne renaissance. Oh, you haven’t heard? Lil Wayne is apparently back and rejuvenated. The evidence for this is a run of features over the past year or so, though despite streaks of brilliance—his nerding out for The Firm on AZ’s Doe or Die II, or the hunger in his raps on Tyler the Creator’s “Hot Wind Blows”—it’s too inconsistent for me to call it a resurgence.
That pretty much holds true on Trust Fund Babies, which seems to exist for the sole reason that Rich grew up on Wayne, and Wayne thought Rich had good vibes. (A more cynical guess would be that Rich rang Wayne’s doorbell and presented him with a hefty duffel bag.) But whatever the motives behind the tape, it’s bizarre that it’s not a ton of fun, given such low stakes. Take the unbearably dry “Yeah Yeah.” It’s cool that Wayne is horny, but if he’s going to be horny, it should be more descriptive than “She just wanna give me some sloppy, yeah/She just wanna lick on my lolly, yeah.” (Gross me out!) On “Shh,” he clocks in a verse so dull, you can’t even single out a line that’s so bad it’s good. He shows signs of life on “Headlock,” but his puns aren’t clever enough to justify the a capella intro.
So much of the space here is filled with Rich hooks and verses that could have easily been recycled and no one would know it. He continues to have no identity of his own, switching between that tired triplet flow and a lazy Young Thug impersonation throughout (most egregiously on the chorus of “Feelin’ Like Tunechi”). If Thug sued me for associating him with this mess, I would understand!
The only reason to care about this mixtape is Wayne, even if it often sounds like he’s being held captive in a studio by Rich and has to rap his way out. “Buzzin’” is a highlight, with some dizzying classic Wayne wordplay and a graphic sex punchline that gets funnier the more you think about it: “She give me brain, that’s skully/She drunk a Wayne McFlurry.” And “Big Boss” has one of the mixtape’s few tolerable Rich the Kid verses. Wayne shines on the spacey production with familiar yet witty punchlines. But the truth is the bar is low. After years of health scares, label issues, and the depressingly awful raps between I Am Not a Human Being II and Free Weezy Album, it’s just nice to hear Wayne rap adequately again. It may not be a comeback, or a return to his glory days, or whatever other overstatement you’ll come across, but it’s fine enough that this half-assed business deal with Rich the Kid isn’t a complete disaster.
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