It’s not clear whether Free Bricks 2: Zone 6 Edition is supposed to exist. Future and Gucci Mane’s new six-song exercise has been scrubbed from the Soundcloud page that birthed it and left to kick around in inconspicuous tracks bundles or in the YouTube ether. It came with no warning and left with little fanfare, a nineteen-minute exhale from two of the most visible and, probably, overworked rappers in the world. Unless one of these songs pops off under new packaging, Free Bricks 2 is probably going to come and go (The Return of East Atlanta Santa in stores December 16). Which is a shame, because Free Bricks 2 is pretty potent dose of what makes Future and Gucci Mane so magnetic.
Written and recorded in less than 24 hours, the sequel to 2011’s Free Bricks is fresh to a fault, with a few cadences that could have been smoothed out, a few points where Gucci still sounds as if he’s getting his post-prison footing. (Speaking of timeliness and Terre Haute, an otherwise unmemorable line about Monica Lewinsky from opener “RR Trucks” sticks in your brain because of Gucci’s heart-wrenching get out the vote speech from earlier this month.) Also endearing: two cult heroes decide to open their new record with a song about maybe, at some indeterminate point in the future, buying a new car they’ve heard about.
“Selling Heroin,” which Southside furnishes with a beautiful bounce is, decidedly, a Gucci Mane song. This proves to be a freeing thing for Future. Since Honest was received coolly by his hardcore fanbase, the preposterously good-looking Atlantan has retreated to his wheelhouse. The career-defining run that began on Monster, became codified on 56 Nights, and culminated with last July’s DS2 was built almost exclusively on songs that forewent the joy or R&B experimentation of his first two LPs. Here, Future comes unhinged just a little; most importantly, he sounds like he’s having fun.
As for Gucci, he’s been on a slow ramp up since his release from custody. This summer’s Everybody Looking was solid, but would have been unremarkable if it came out during his storied mixtape run; last month’s Woptober has more world-class rapping than its predecessor, but no songs that will significantly alter the Gucci canon. While his pen seems mostly intact, the Zone 6 legend can’t quite find the right vocal register, what with the massive weight loss and newfound sobriety. This is likely to be sorted out soon, but in the meantime there are moments when he sounds like he’s searching. There are also brief passages where Gucci’s vocals come unmoored from the beat in a way his more laconic early-Obama self seldom did.
But Gucci finds the pocket frequently on Free Bricks 2, and the result is always a joy. On “Die a Gangsta,” he raps: “They call me East Atlanta Santa, I’ma fuck up the profit/I’m the Grinch that stole Christmas, I might go in your stocking/I’m talking, too cocky, I got so much juice/My wrist is too rocky, they done let Wop loose.” Even if Future’s cool disaffect is en vogue, Gucci is the record’s emotional center, and when he’s booking luxe hotel room penthouses for shooters or buying his sixteenth Bentley, he’s the only rapper in the world you want to listen to. That’s the insane gravitational pull that Gucci’s somehow managed to harness: when he’s on, not only is he endlessly listenable, he renders his fiercest competition an afterthought.
Free Bricks 2 benefits from a superb production lineup—Southside and Metro Boomin split duties, except for when they pass the baton to Zaytoven, who’s played a crucial role in ushering each rapper into the limelight. Zay helms “Kind a Dope,” the record’s highlight, where Gucci channels Ridin’ Dirty and raps, “When you was playing basketball, man, I was playing Pimp C.” This little piece of Gucci's legacy is forgotten, and it’s the crux of why a tape like this can be so impressive; even if Future and Gucci Mane are cast as instinctive, impulsive savants, each is drawing on a wealth of musical knowledge that informs their work. Free Bricks 2 will likely get lost in the shuffle, but it’s the sound of two superlative talents working without boundaries.
