Yo Gotti has been a Memphis rap star for so long that you can hear his voice deepening over the years even as his subject matter hasn't. If you listen to his first regional hit, 2000’s "After I Fuck Your Bitch," and then his recent viral breakout, last year’s "Down in the DM," you’ll hear the same guy rapping about pretty much the same thing in slightly different registers. But at the age of 36, and after two decades in hip-hop (he first released music under the name Lil Yo when he was 14), Gotti has finally firmed up his status as a major-label rap artist. And while his latest album, The Art of Hustle, is unquestionably the biggest of Gotti’s career, it also feels like just another notch in his belt.
As a rapper, Gotti is practiced but lyrically unambitious. His bars are straight-to-the-point and matter-of-fact, and it’s his willingness to open up that endears. On "Momma," one of The Art of Hustle’s best and most personal songs, Gotti raps about being raised by six women and a man that wasn’t his father, accounting for the highs and lows of a life built on hustling and basking in the relief of going legit. For opener "My City," Gotti enlists K. Michelle to lament and pay homage to their shared hometown. But for all his pride and investment in the city—Gotti’s Collective Music Group label has signed local up-and-comers like Blac Youngsta, Snootie Wild, and Zed Zilla—The Art of Hustle reads generically Southern.
Despite an impressive head count of industry heavyweights, the album doesn't fare well as a whole. Lil Wayne shows up on "Bible" for a rote banger; Future punches in a forgettable verse on a flat trap anthem called "General"; Pusha T snarls appropriately on the middle of "Hunnid." The collaborations are evidence of Gotti’s industry footprint rather than creative matchmaking, and the only one that strikes a spark is mold-breaker "Law," which folds E-40 comfortably into a slinky beat with bells ringing in the background.
And then there’s the album’s money-maker. "Down in the DM" isn’t a fluke hit, but it’s enjoyed the type of viral success that can’t be forced. In the last week alone: Lil Mama shared a video called "Memes," Lil' Kim enlisted Kevin Gates for a Valentine's Day track called "#Mine", and Soulja Boy offered a sleazy artwork-toting single called "Snapchat." All three are lame attempts to recapture what "Down in the DM" does so naturally, revelling in the shallowness of Instagram. The addition of two full-fledged verses from Nicki Minaj improves on the original and also gives the album its best and most memorable burst of rapping.
In a recent podcast interview with Rap Radar, Gotti admitted that "Down in the DM" was "just another song." "I’m making three, four, five songs a day," he said. "To be honest with you, I’m not even dwelling into the music that long." It’s an unsurprising piece of insight that accounts for the album’s generally low-stakes vibe. Noticeably, on the same day that Gotti released this eighth album in his catalog, another Memphis rapper released his first. Young Dolph’s King of Memphis seems almost like a provocation, but that there’s a crown worth snatching at all is a testament to Gotti having molded it for himself. Unfortunately, The Art of Hustle is mostly forgettable as a major-label rap record, but it bears out a teachable truth about Gotti's career: sometimes showing up is more than half the battle.
