SOBxRBE dropped into the rap world like a cartoon fight cloud. Last year alone, they released two full-length albums: the careening Gangin’ and its meaner-sounding sequel. This is not counting any of the solo work by the group’s four members (Yhung T.O., Slimmy B, DaBoii, and Lul G); nor does it include “Paramedic!,” their standout song from TDE’s Black Panther soundtrack. Family Not a Group, a collaboration with the Fontana, California-bred producer Hit-Boy, casts SOB as an act with a durable style that can be transposed into new formats, sometimes workmanlike but usually thrilling, too.
The secret to SOB’s continued success lies in the group’s mechanics: Slimmy, Lul G, and DaBoii rap in different variations on the same urgent bark, while the smooth-voiced T.O. offers the kind of half-R&B hooks that might reasonably wind up on rap radio. It’s a time-tested recipe—dense, uncompromising street rap, glazed with semi-sweet hooks—that evokes everyone from G-Unit to the Hot Boys. It also allows them to take big pop swings without muddying their core identity.
On Family Not A Group, they manage to get away with some moves that that would be trite in other hands. The opener, “Chosen 1,” sounds like the climax of a movie where everybody learns a little something in the end; the song works because from the moment Slimmy opens his mouth, SOB seems both in tune with the beat’s triumphant spine and at odds with its glossy finish. (It also helps that T.O., tasked as always with giving the track its silky hook, is reeling off sparklers like “You can’t talk about no body til you get one.”)
Hit-Boy’s beats mostly adhere to SOB’s established format: propulsive, sparse arrangements juiced with bone-crack percussion. In that sense, Family Not A Group sounds more like Hit-Boy stepping in to do an SOB x RBE album than the other way around. Hit-Boy has always been a more of a collaborator than a signature-stamp producer: He went from producing singular hits like “Niggas in Paris” and “Backseat Freestyle” to helping major artists realize visions of their own. He fumbles here and there, though, like on“WYO,” which is anonymous lounge music.
Despite the album’s title, Lul G appears only once, with an excellent verse on “Both Sides,” suggesting a rift similar to the one that cropped up before the release of Gangin’ II. It’s unfortunate because the best songs here—the woozy, minimal “Stuck In the Streets” and the growling “Young Wild Niggas”—suggest a group still on the upswing.
