Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame have always shared a symbiotic relationship. With Gucci frequently in and out of jail, keeping the Brick Squad name and label relevant has mostly fallen on Waka's shoulders, and he's done a more than adequate job, releasing a few legitimate radio hits as well as one of the best rap albums of last year. Waka has also gathered a host of new rappers under Brick Squad's wings-- most notably Slim Dunkin, who appears on Ferrari Boyz twice-- and while likely none of them will end up as stars, the brand extension certainly can't hurt. Waka, of course, was brought along for the ride as Gucci ascended upward, and his success was undoubtedly accelerated by his proximity to Gucci's budding stardom.
What made the partnership work artistically is that their styles are almost completely opposite. At the height of his profligacy, Gucci was penning colorful and singular verses that, from a writing and conceptual standpoint, put him in rap's upper tier. But he also had a keen ear for pop; his best hooks were almost impossibly intricate (arguably even unnecessarily so, considering how much music he gave away for free), and he managed to embed most of his ad-libs in the genre's collective consciousness. Standing in stark contrast, Waka's style is purposefully non-lyrical, and his choruses are often him just shouting a phrase or two-- no less catchy, but still an altogether different tactic. And where Gucci's beats were highly musical, Waka's are often loud and seemingly best fit for head banging. If Gucci painted pictures, Waka looks at a blank canvas and dumps a can of red paint on it. Then maybe breaks it over his knee.
But here's the dirty secret about Waka and Gucci: They've never worked well as collaborators. Though they've now been on dozens of songs together, none ranks in either artist's upper echelon, and many have been an outright bore. On paper, their styles do not mesh, and in practice they don't either. They both sound awkward and out of place on each other's tracks-- Gucci blunts Waka's raw emotion, and Waka leaves little room for Gucci's writerly leanings. That trend doesn't change on Ferrari Boyz, their official commercially released collaborative album.
Most of their collaborations arrived after Waka really blew up, and they've found Gucci heavily drawn to his aesthetic. That can probably be chalked to staying with the hot hand-- basically everyone in rap is flocking to the beats of producers Lex Luger and Southside (who partly owe their success to Waka's), so why go in a different direction? And truly, if you took Gucci's contributions off Ferrari Boyz and replaced them with Brick Squad underlings, you'd probably be looking at something close to Flockaveli's follow-up.
But that raises another question: If Gucci is worlds better than guys like YG Hootie and Kebo Gotti, shouldn't Ferrari Boyz be as good, if not better, than Flockaveli? Theoretically, yes, but it's missing most of the elements that made Waka's solo album so great and so invigorating. Namely, it lacks the manic energy that is Waka's calling card: If it's possible to go through the motions while still mostly shouting, Ferrari Boyz would be a prime example. The album can also get drearily monotonous-- though at times the beats will switch out of the album's minor key template, Ferrari Boyz desperately lacks the standout outliers like "Fuck the Club Up" or "Grove St. Party" that help buoy Flockaveli.
The album does pick up near the end: "Too Loyal" rides a blippy beat that's maybe the record's most fun production, and it also finds Gucci retaining some of the playfulness that's always been a part of his music. "So Many Things", the real keeper, is a fluttery track that finds Gucci singing the album's best hook with an endearingly amateur whine. (It should come as no surprise as to who is behind both: Fatboi, a frequent Gucci cohort.)
Though guys like Hootie couldn't hold Gucci's rhyme book, they fit perfectly into Waka's aesthetic-- even if they don't rock anti-skill as a skill nearly as well as he does, they're at least willing to sound animated. Gucci, in contrast, puts little effort into his writing here, which is made all the worse by him sounding profoundly bored, tired, stoned, or some combination of the three. It's a problem that has plagued a lot of his music recently, but it's a bigger issue now that he doesn't have the appropriate production to perk, or prop, him up. That said, Ferrari Boyz is far from dire-- it's largely just disappointing. Gucci and Waka still don't sound at home together, and it's of little comfort that their clashing styles are what made them great in the first place.
