In a recent interview with Rap Radar’s Brian Miller and Elliot Wilson, Houston rap icon Z-Ro copped to having seven unreleased albums on his phone. There’s Legendary, designed to make you feel legendary. There’s Ghetto Gospel, designed to make you feel like you’re at church on the street corner. (I wonder how previous albums Angel Dust, Cocaine, and Meth were supposed to make you feel.) And, now, there’s Drankin’ & Drivin’, an album you’re supposed to put on when you’re lost in the sauce, stuck in the mud, slowed down by any mixture of lean, alcohol, or some other vice, caught in your feelings.
Z-Ro, legally known as Joseph McVey, sometimes calls himself “Rother Vandross,” and it’s more than a pun: Ro’s gorgeous, languid baritone frequently lapses into singing, and his best music has featured a hard-hitting hook sung by the man himself. My favorite version of Ro has been the guy who turned “I hate you bitch” into a gentle, reflective, melodic lyric.
This is Drankin’ & Drivin’s strongest suit—Ro delivers a few knockout hooks, addresses his haters, and it’s onto the next song. It would be tempting to suggest Ro’s material mostly sticks to a few topics to his detriment—haters, baby-mama drama, disloyal members of his crew (sometimes these people overlap)—but what has separated Ro’s music from more traditional street rap, even among fellow introspective Houston contemporaries like Trae tha Truth and Scarface, has been his uncanny knack for taking just about any phrase and building a sweeping hook with it. He embellishes the feeling, less the storytelling.
Lead single “Women Men” (which cops a beat from 50 Cent’s “Many Men [Wish Death]”) hits all the best Z-Ro targets: He talks shit, he sings, and the mood floats between celebratory and menacing, without one eclipsing the other. This is another great little strength of Ro’s—while he paints with just a few colors, he continually finds new ways to blend them. He admits his albums are more mood rings than song-cycles; they’re something you put on when you want to feel a certain way. Considering the sound most associated with Houston rap was created literally as an accessory to taking drugs, the laconic Drankin’ & Drivin’ feels all too appropriate.
A self-professed fan of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the only guest Z-Ro invites into his insular world is Krayzie Bone, who appears on “Since We Lost Y’all.” Bone Thugs’ rhythmic, supple mix of rapping and singing is another key to understanding Z-Ro. He often sounds comfortable, but never complacent: for every song like “Baby Momma Blues,” elsewhere he hits subtle notes like comparing himself to Isiah Carey, a local news anchor (“I tell it like it is/Not the way it might be”) and touches on political/cultural touchstones that resonate heavily in Texas (on “He Hoes” he says, “Representing for Sandra Bland/My attitude is fuck the law”). Z-Ro sounds like what Houston feels like—hot, inviting, intimidating if you take a wrong turn, but redemptive if you stick around long enough.
He connects with local producers Beanz & Kornbread, who craft a soulful sex jam with “Hostage” that has more in common with the song of the same name on Maxwell’s recent blackSUMMERS’night than whatever comes to mind when you think of Ro. Another great Houston-based producer, June James, creates a lush, stirring beat on the album’s penultimate statement, “Successful,” solemn when the rest of the album can be thorny. Z-Ro accomplished his goal, then—the album is like hearing the innermost thoughts from someone who’s had a little bit to drink, but not too much—the kind of buzz that convinces someone they’re OK behind the wheel, until, of course, they crash.
