While Master P dropped Al Capone in January and Mystikal put out the bulldozing “Hit Me” last December, the only alumnus of heyday-era No Limit who’s been consistently releasing worthwhile music is Fiend. The New Orleans rapper was a second-tier figure on P’s label during its absurdly lucrative late-'90s, and back then, he rapped with a throaty yammer that remained the center of attention no matter how hard the Beats by the Pound track beneath him was slamming. But Fiend’s mellowed out over the years, and these days he’s almost exclusively found atop goopy, deeply luxuriating beats, meanwhile fitting squarely into the same league of weed-rap as his buddy Curren$y. And with Lil Ghetto Boy, his first (but probably not last) tape of the year, he’s given us another satisfying slab of the stuff, superceding even 2011’s excellent Tennis Shoes & Tuxedos. The man has his lane.
When he’s not waxing vaguely political on a track like “Blue, White, Red” or imparting a few words on fatherhood during “Violent Violins”, Fiend is laconically exploring Curren$y’s brand of girls-, weed-, and cars-based vaunting. That Oldsmo he just cruised past in? “I’m in a old school that’ll shut down your newest.” Wonder why, in the grand scheme of things, he’s barely a blip on the radar anymore? He’s “too real for TV.” The chick all over him at the club tonight? She’s got "the type of ass to get yours in trouble.” But while these particular lines all do nicely, Lil Ghetto Boy is a success thanks mostly to non-lyrical factors, and any ground lost due to Fiend’s not-especially-immersing penmanship is more than made up for.
Fiend freestyled over Washed Out’s “Feel It All Around” early last year, but I don’t think he intended it to be the publicity stunt it might’ve looked like; Ernest Greene’s impossibly lush, Gary Low-sampling track just happens to be the kind of thing he’s come to sound gorgeous over. And as is the case with all of his other recent tapes, there’s a ton of that same energy here. Musically, Lil Ghetto Boy is mostly nectary basslines, Nile Rodgers funk guitar, and blaxploitation horn-blasts, a framework that joins so relaxingly with Fiend’s charcoal baritone that parsing through the lyrics becomes an afterthought. It might be a backhanded compliment to say that benefits the tape, but that benefits the tape.
Still, Lil Ghetto Boy totals 22 tracks and tops 70 minutes, and any release this hefty should swerve occasionally in order to keep things interesting. Luckily, a few curves do pop up here. “Lil Sumptin” is the kind of Mouse on tha Track sputter-slap that demands to be set to a video featuring a candy-colored Cadillac with obnoxiously powerful hydraulics. Later, on the back third of the tape, “No Apologies” and “Play if You Want” approach the ominous belfry trap we’re used to hearing Meek Mill tear through, the latter being a beat-of-the-year contender despite its fleeting two-and-a-half-minute run time. Some of these deviations inspire Fiend to bust out that original vein-popping bark of his (not to mention more frequent use of his “WHOMP WHOMP” adlib), but not one compromises the character of the tape as a whole. A sequential triumph, Lil Ghetto Boy plays like one long, sweeping showcase of what Fiend does best and, when things head toward monotony, some of the other things he’s capable of. He might never again find the commercial success he had early in his career, but with Lil Ghetto Boy, his second wind (if this phase of his career can be called that) seems to be getting even stronger.
