One way of viewing an artist's career in its entirety is to consider it through the lens of the canon events that spangle its tapestry. Take the case of Ye, who is perhaps Hip Hop’s most notorious provocateur. His career is typically bifurcated into his pre and post Life of Pablo eras—the period in which the album was released is considered by many as the start of his inexorable unraveling. For BurnaBoy, who is one of Africa’s greatest exports, the period in which he released his 2018 globe-trotting hit Ye, is considered to be the start of his ascent to global superstardom—and by effect, his most significant canon moment.
By this measure, one of the most effective ways to consider Gunna’s oeuvre would be to split it into two categories: projects before and after his 2022 RICO charge, which involved more than 27 others affiliated with YSL Records, including Young Thug, who at the time was Gunna’s close friend and label boss.
When in December of 2022, after spending 7 months in jail, Gunna was released after pleading guilty to one charge of conspiring to violate the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, he began another kind of interment, this time swapping the physical bars of a jail cell for pariah status within his immediate community. The reasons for this shift are various, the most significant however is that many interpreted his plea deal as evidence of him having cooperated with federal agents, even though he has refuted this claim. Since regaining his freedom and facing the attendant blitz of criticism lobbed at him since then, his music has commensurately taken on a dark, brooding tenor.
In Bread and Butter, from A Gift and a Curse—his first album after his RICO charge—he’s wistful, solemn, as he reflects on flaky relationships and makes a case for his innocence. “I had been down bad inside a dark tunnel,” he sings over melancholy chords. Later in the song he sings “Never gave no statement or agree to take no stand on 'em/ On whatever you niggas on and trust me, l'ma stand on it.” His desperation to be heard, to be believed is palpable in these lyrics. Likewise they elicit a visceral reaction in the listener: we all know the feeling of being misunderstood or worse—falsely accused. In The Last of Wun, he’s still addressing these interlocutors but where in A Gift and a Curse he offers desperate entreaties, here he’s rapping with a chip on his shoulders, meeting the scorn from his antagonists with equal derision.
It’s telling that a lot of the album finds him rhapsodizing about his opulent lifestyle and how far he’s come—themes he frequently plumbed in the period before his RICO trial. But while he interrogates familiar themes he does so with a newfound confidence that bespeaks maturity. “Live my life like a movie, how I do it, you can imagine/ I spent trip this winter in a jacuzzi, in the cabins,” he raps on Let That Sink In, a slow-burning track in which he cheekily dispatches subliminal shots at his antagonists and exults in his grandeur. Sakapse, gp, Just Say That, Him All Along, and the Offset-assisted At My Purest, find him in a similar register interspersing panoramic tableaus of opulence with cheeky taunts directed at his foes.
Wealth, particularly the obscene, bombastic kind, is a well-worn trope of Hip-Hop, having been explored by everyone from Jay Z to Lil Baby. As a result, it can sometimes feel vacuous, cliche. But hearing Gunna rap about speeding down the block in his black Maybach or splurging on watches in Zurich has the opposite effect. The glistening production and the intricate details he supplies confer the album with a cinematic quality. Take Sakpase. With a production that feels lush and whimsical in equal measure, listening feels like a late night commute to a party. You’re with a party of friends in a barely lit car, booze is flowing freely, as are other stimulants common at parties. It’s not so much the thoughts of the party that excites but the experience of being jointly steeped in anticipation for what the night might offer.
Some of the most exhilarating moments on the album arrive when he retires the playful jabs on songs like Let That Sink In in service of more potent blows to his foes. Listening to Podcast, for example, evokes the feeling of leaning up in your seat while playing a video game to get serious. In Biting My Game he derides his enemies for being “broke as a pencil,” and accuses them of “biting my game.” Across the song he offers boastful lyrics about his elevated lifestyle. But here, the intent is less about self-exultation than it is about taunting his foes. Herein lies the strength of the album. In the hands of a lesser rapper, this project would perhaps have spiralled into a reckless and frenzied display of vengeance, creating a project too toxic for a casual listen. Gunna however lacquers moments of vindictiveness with picturesque tableaus of opulence. The effect? It truly feels like he has moved on from the hurt he variously alludes to in A Gift and a Curse and is now living his best life.
