A few years ago, superproducer and frequent Boldy James collaborator the Alchemist discovered that the rapper likes to write in cars. “Not even a moving vehicle,” Alchemist told Complex; “he’s just parked up with the lights on, and he gets his mind right.” That habit fits with the alert repose of the Detroiter’s ruminative drug rap. James’ music is still and relaxed, yet taut as a wound spring. At any moment, violence or emotion might erupt from the calm, like a parked vehicle charging into traffic.
Boldy’s meditations have become a cottage industry since 2020. Every few months, he’ll huddle up with a single producer—like Alchemist, Jay Versace, or Nicholas Craven—and emerge with another casually prismatic street chronicle. It’s shocking how seldom he repeats himself, even as his collaborators tap similar loop-based beats. Working with one producer seems to allow Boldy to zoom in on a particular moment in time—be it the aftermath of a devastating car crash or the stressful prologue to his rap career—and capture every racing thought. On Across the Tracks, a team-up with Missouri producer Conductor Williams, Boldy sifts through recollections of life on the road and on the grind. The album is a travelogue of memories, each song grasping at some distant locale or experience.
The title, which plays on producer Conductor Williams’ name, suits the music’s pensive and peripatetic mood. Conductor, one of the pillars of Griselda Records’ luxe and wavy sound, specializes in dreamy beats built around yawning samples, and this collection is his strongest. He seems to loll his samples rather than chop them, stretching sounds like taffy and then arranging drums and melodies around their elongated shapes. “Flying Trapeze Act” starts with a gorgeous vocal loop and bleeds into a star stream of percussion and chords that flicker in and out of focus as Boldy waxes about close calls. “Used to feel trapped in the ghetto, tryna to break free/On a 30-year run, I feel like an escapee,” he says with relief. Rappers often turn reflective and defiant on Conductor beats; his arrangements have the transportive sparkle of reveries.
As if daydreaming, Boldy spends Across the Tracks teetering between the past and the present. He is dazzlingly limber on standout “The Ol Switcharoo,” bouncing off the clomping downbeat as he recalls life on the go. “East, west, running back and forth tryna run his money up the long way/Stepped on it like a bunion, had a run-yun for the mun-yun/Sold more circles than some Funyuns, all eyes on me through the tollways,” he raps, stretching his words to fit the soothing beat’s languid cadence. His use of directions rather than specific places reinforces the feeling that he is never at rest.
Even when James does use proper nouns, his narratives are generally scrambled. Key motifs and throughlines become legible only through the subtle accretion of tiny details and tensions amid the slick flexes. Driving makes him antsy (“Touchin' down was a cakewalk, I was more nervous on the drive back”) and puts him at ease (“Backin’ Wraith out the garage, I'm through the stratosphere”). His first brick of cocaine, the “worst” one, marks him like a curse, but he boasts, “I just took that bitch to pound town” of a bundle he deems “Sexxy Red.” The FBI, which gets multiple mentions, makes him wary of unfamiliar cars. But also, the feds are just haters: “Whole Bureau know that a nigga high-profile.” There is no explicit payoff to these threads, but they add ballast to Boldy’s twisty verses, which can seem leisurely because of his laidback delivery but often burble with conflict and regret. Conductor’s use of wailing voices and snatches of dialogue accents the rapper’s frequent mentions of dead friends and old memories. James’ Detroit, like Vince Staples’ Long Beach and Ka’s Brownsville, is both a physical place and a spectral presence.
Despite this haunted dynamic, the album ends with an embrace of home. Closer “Stamps in the Middle,” set to fuzzy horn blasts and hazy drums that echo opener “Terms and Conditions,” casts Boldy’s arcing journey as prodigal. “Yeah, I sold drugs, but that ain't shit to be ashamеd about/I made it out unscathed, blocks so hot that you could sunbathe/Nеighborhood full of dead ends and one-ways,” he raps with pride. This bleak, claustrophobic image shouldn’t be charming, but his conviction, and Conductor’s sanguine beat, coat it in warmth.
