The Stimulus Package comes housed in a gigantic money clip-- the liner notes on the backs of gigantic dollar bills with the faces of Freeway and Jake One on them, the CD itself in a cardboard wallet along with a download card for the instrumental version. As a design conceit, it's brilliant-- the packaging alone might make the album worth its price as a straight-up conversation piece. But it also highlights some of the weirdness surrounding the record's release, since the LP probably wouldn't exist if Freeway were still walking around with gigantic money clips in his pocket.
When Free made his debut about a decade ago, he was part of Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella stable, which means he debuted on the grandest stage imaginable. On tracks like "1-900-HUSTLER" and "Rock the Mic", his raspy, tense flow sounded perfectly at home next to Jay and Beanie Sigel. On his 2003 debut album, Philadelphia Freeway, Mariah Carey and Nelly made cameos. In 2004, it was mildly shocking to hear him alongside a backpack rapper like Mos Def on Kanye West's "Two Words". Then Roc-A-Fella imploded and the market for major-label rap dried up. And now Free's at Rhymesayers, labelmates with guys like BK-One and I Self Divine.
But maybe the weirdest thing about Free's long migration underground is how much sense it makes. Free was always a role player on Roc-A-Fella, too knotty and intense to really stand any chance at mainstream stardom. And after the crew splintered, Free didn't stop working: A month of tracks released to the Internet every day, a middling street album, and now this. At Rhymesayers, Free's got a label with a built-in fanbase and, thanks in part to Brother Ali, an appetite for grown-man firebreathing. And he's also got the chance to team with Jake One, the journeyman producer who's worked with everyone from G-Unit to MF Doom to John Cena. Free is an East Coast rap fundamentalist at heart, and the idea of cranking out a full album with only one producer must've been tempting. Anyone who loved Roc-A-Fella in its prime has to root for Freeway, one of the crew's most vital presences, and it's great to see him land somewhere fitting. Plus it means we get the weird thrill of hearing Birdman on a Rhymesayers album, an unmistakable sign that rap's universe is shrinking so fast that nobody knows what the fuck to do.
But feel-good story aside, this isn't Free's best work. When he recorded Philadelphia Freeway, he had an opportunity most rappers never get: He got to work with one of the greatest producers in history, Just Blaze, at his peak. Just produced most of the album, and his raging storms of old-soul pathos and drum-machine whirlwinds made a perfect complement to Free's strained ferocity. Everything Freeway and Just Blaze made together felt urgent and immediate, and Jake One, solid producer though he is, just doesn't have that level of intensity. Though not all the beats on The Stimulus Package feature actual musicians, most of them do have a sort of gritless, anonymous session-musician sheen to them.
But even over tracks that scan as merely competent, Free's got one of those voices that demands attention. Too many of the songs on The Stimulus Package have goofy one-note concepts, which for some reason is almost always an issue when a once-popular rapper goes underground. So we get the song where Free talks about his rapping as a drug, or the one where he raps about the letters he gets from fans. Even on songs like these, though, Free comes with great little touches that keep things interesting. On "Stimulus Outro", the one with the letters, he adapts a slight Southern twang when rapping in the voice of a fan from North Carolina. On another, he calls a snitch a "Bubbles from 'The Wire'-ass nigga", which is sort of great. And he has a way with telling little details that ground his urgency and make it tangible: "I'm not trying to do carpentry like my pops," "I had my Walkman in my pocket, used to hop on the bus," shouting out his lawyers by name.
The Stimulus Package would work better as an album if Free had a little more help directing his skills, or if he just decided to rap hard on every song instead of tying himself to concepts. But even the goofiest songs here are still fun listens, and a few tracks come close to capturing his old brilliance. "Microphone Killa" has no grand unifying idea; it's just Free and State Property comrade Young Chris rapping hard and fast over a classically funky beat. And "Never Gonna Change" is a riveting example of storytelling rap, though it would work better if Free didn't open with, "It's like the Biggie 'Warning'." Jake One's beat moves around constantly, injecting drum breakdowns every few measures, and Free takes it as a challenge, punctuating every breakdown by putting a syllable on every snare hit in a dizzying display of technical precision. The Stimulus Package might not have as many moments like these as Free's first two albums, but a few moments like that are still enough to make the LP one of the stronger rap releases of 2010 thus far.
