New York’s golden-age gods loom over many of the city’s current crop of emcees—from Joey Bada$$’s dusty boom-bap, to Ka’s bitter-cold drug slinging narratives–but Meyhem Lauren is among the most fiercely dedicated students. Operating in an outline sketched out by Martin Scorsese and Reasonable Doubt, the Queens heavyweight pitches himself as a veteran crime boss too deep in the game to change his ways, too flush from the life to take a step back.
Sticking to this trusted methodology, Lauren has struggled to separate himself from the pack. The wheezy-voiced rapper often deploys a steady-paced flow that rumbles into view like a packed SUV, his style landing somewhere between NYC legends Raekwon and Big Pun, without the former’s eye for detail or latter’s technical complexity. When Meyhem overexerts himself, he sounds like the air can’t back into his lungs fast enough; in his best moments, his gruff vocals hit hard and effectively. He’ll rap blood-soaked confessions with the eerie calm of a guy who isn’t kidding, and his sex stories are cooed like he’s still dragging on that first post-coital cigarette.
His latest offering Piatto D’oro is derivative as hell, but it’s still fun to throw on. The sturdy, familiar beats and the no-nonsense hooks—like on the sidewalk-smashing "Deep Cover" homage "Badmon Ting" and shimmering street anthem "Elevation"—mostly stick. It’s old school gangster rap appropriation for those who can’t get enough of the familiar stuff.
"Money in My Pocket" lays out Meyhem’s manifesto: "Lunch at Don Pepe’s, life in rap essays/Top grain leather, we tryna enjoy decades." Like his frequent collaborator Action Bronson, Meyhem raps about food a whole lot, bragging about eating crab meat "right out the shell" on the soul sample-swaddled "Garlic and Oil" and his 4am steam fish take-out runs on the tough drums of "Vintage." In Mey’s world, the quality on your cuisine is the ultimate status barometer.
Though there’s surface-level value to the set, *Piatto D’oro *too often wilts under close inspection. Meyhem might take us on a slow drive around his neighborhood, but we never get close enough to the drama. The violent imagery and drug-dealing narratives lack rich specifics, a moralistic center or any sense of a beating heart behind the poker-faced protagonist’s bluster. It’s a widescreen crime flick with a seven-page script.
Take the Large Professor-produced "Not Guilty." The minimalist beat leaves plenty of space, and would have been a good opportunity for Lauren to delve into his outlaw origin story. Instead, we get more stock similes: "Breitling on my wrist since I’m 21/Became a man, bought a watch and a gun," he spits, passing up chances to dig any deeper. "Bonus Round" keeps the retro charm ringing, but with a Sega Genesis-jacked sound. Roc Marciano, Action Bronson and Big Body Bes guest as the lean 16-bit pyrotechnics swarm around the squad’s voices. Here, Bronson does with a bar than most rappers need whole verses to lay out: "Daddy didn’t believe I was an earner/‘Till I showed up in the Lamb with the safari window," he raps, connecting the past with the present, and family with his hoodlum life, in just a couple of lines. It’s a reminder that most of Piatto D’oro is all gusto with little underneath.
