Larry June is a 31 year old MC from Vallejo, California been steadily grinding his ass off since dropping out of high school by dropping his last 8 studio efforts as well as 14 EPs & 7 mixtapes. My favorites of his ever-growing discography include the Lex Luger-produced Trap Larry, the Cardo-produced Cruise USA & it’s sequel Into the Late Night, the Harry Fraud-produced Keep Going & more recently the mobb music-influenced Jay Worthy collab effort 2 P’z in a Pod that just celebrated it’s 1-year anniversary last weekend. But coming off Spaceships on the Blade last summer, Larry’s enlisting The Alchemist to fully produce his highly anticipated 9th album.
“Turkish Cotton” is a jazzy opener to the album as Larry talks about making sure your tax is right whereas “89 Earthquake” dives into boom bap turf airing out every single person out here still looking at him as a threat. Action Bronson comes into the picture for the slick “Solid Plan” doing it all for the motherfuckin’ bankroll leading into Big Sean tagging along for the groovy “Palisades, CA” paying tribute to the titular city in the sunshine state.
Moving onto “Summer Reign”, we have Larry over a warm sample to provide a fitting anthem to ride around with the top down to as the spring weather continues to roll it’s way around the corner just before the Beat Butcha co-produced “Orange Village” enlists T3 & Young RJ of Slum Village has a more hypnotic sound to it as the trio work, live & try for a better day prior to him flexing with a fresh amount of charisma throughout the drumless “Porsches in Spanish”.
“Art Talk” with Boldy James has a more spacious, psychedelic quality to the beat as they discuss getting it off the black top until the summery, calm “Ocean Sounds” gets into romantic pop rap territory & actually not coming off as forced as some try to do it these days. “Left No Evidence” with Evidence perfectly enough hope over some pianos, kicks & snares as they both rock the shit in their own respective ways while “What Happened to the World?” with Wiz Khalifa has a more mellow approach talking about the only thing on their minds is to get the money.
Meanwhile on “Éxito”, things take a more twangier route as Jay Worthy assists Larry in showing off just how well respected they are & not wanting to beef with anyone as they continue at trying to succeed while the song “60 Days” with Uncle Al himself finds the 2 exuberantly talking about how anything can happen in 2 months. The penultimate track “Barragán Lightning” with Curren$y & Joey Bada$$ provide a colorful anthem addressing living off life & “Margie’s Candy House” is a jazzy, soulful closer looking back on his younger days.
Of the 9 full-lengths that Larry has dropped throughout his 17 year career, The Great Escape will no doubt quickly become the strongest of them all & one that I think new fans will find to be a perfect introduction into his discography. Uncle Al’s production is more drumless yet jazzy this time around perfectly suiting the Vallejo delivers some calm bars of luxury cars as well as presidential suites & of course fresh-squeezed orange juice that’re cooler than the other side of the pooler. Amazing job, Larry!
Score: 9/10
