Just last year, the Sacramento rapper Mozzy released five projects. Alongside full-length collaborations with Bay Area cannabis tycoon Berner, former MMG foot soldier Gunplay, and Jersey battle rapper Tsu Surf, he also dropped a solo album called Internal Affairs. Few rappers work harder or give more of themselves, but he tends to make his most resonant music when he gives himself time to reflect. Case in point: His latest album, Beyond Bulletproof, comes after a six-month break, and while the lyrics represent another immersion into Mozzy’s seemingly endless loop of bloodthirsty reciprocity, the music feels warmer, less standoffish. This is the first Mozzy album that could feasibly crack the radio, and it does so without compromising the integrity of his storytelling.
The production adds a softer R&B sway to his usual West Coast bounce, with piano chords, lightly fingered guitar riffs, and samples of “Let Me Love You” and “Can’t Let You Go.” The rasp in his voice eases into the occasional singsong, and as the songs grow smoother, Mozzy’s bleak worldview becomes less impenetrable. Here, he establishes himself as an unlikely role model and a champion for the lost and damned. Even his most hostile songs hide moments of tenderness: “Body Count” pads his rap sheet and offers prayers for loved ones in nearly the same breath. The hustle-hard anthem “Off the Muscle” uses brusque bars to impart simple, resonant messages. Through the huffed flows of “I Ain’t Perfect,” he ponders depression symptoms, shows compassion for the hopeless and the homeless, and describes vengeance as a flawed coping mechanism. “On Jesus Christ/Retaliation help me sleep at night,” he raps, but he still sounds weary and weighed down.
God is the only force Mozzy fully trusts in, the only one there for him consistently (“I pray in the mornin’, I go get the dough, then I thank Him at night”). But despite his trust issues, he can be empathetic. On more than one occasion, he sees his aunt’s amphetamine addiction for what it is: a means to numb the pain of abuse. Near the end of “Unethical & Deceitful,” Mozzy lays down his personal code: “I was taught provide for your people/Life without parole, he’d rather die in search of freedom.”
Despite the violence and mayhem depicted in his lyrics, Mozzy is clear-eyed, and at no point do the words feel gratuitously violent or like misery porn. They simply are haunting in their fidelity. If he terrifies you occasionally, that is a testament to his writing. At the end of “So Lonely,” he eulogizes seven fallen friends, and there’s suffering in his voice whenever he raps about responding in kind. Handcuffs rob boys of their innocence, painkillers fail to dull pain, and bodies keep piling up: In his songs, there are no safeguards.
Beyond Bulletproof is the closest Mozzy has come to making his songs accessible. It’s hard to play the victim and the perpetrator all at once, but it’s remarkable how well he manages, and while his evolution into a hood benefactor is ongoing, his songs are already benefiting from the widened scope. It doesn’t have the immediacy of 2015’s Bladadah or the gravity of 2017’s 1 Up Top Akh, but Beyond Bulletproof is a better entry point into his massive catalog, a way to ease into his cruel reality without being overwhelmed by its darkness.
