San Francisco, California emcee Ramirez ending the month with his 13th extended play. Emerging as a longtime affiliate of the $uicideboy$, he would go on to co-found to the New Orleans-based indie label G*59 Record$ with them & build himself as an artist by dropping 8 mixtapes along with his last dozen EPs & 5 full-lengths. Tha Playa$ Manual was his best LP yet with it’s g-funk production from Rocci, coming off the sequel under his newly formed EMPIRE Distribution imprint Velvet Note Records nearly 13 months earlier following his amicable G*59 departure to drop Brabus & Lorinsers.
“Gran Turismo” begins with this smooth west coast intro rapping about the only thing that stays on his mind is making money whereas “Hacienda” takes a more spacious route instrumentally & getting significantly melodic in terms of performance, exploring his range for an R&B slow jam. “The Harvest” featuring Boldy James finds the pair encouraging everyone to get their paper while “Lil Nameless 2K16” takes it back to his Memphis rap origins.
Kicking off the 2nd half of Brabus & Lorinsers, the song “Too Many Hoes” coasts over a chilled out beat talking about having an excessive amount of women tryna take what’s his just before “Soundscape” cavernously yearns to be held tight & kept close. The lead single “Come Outside” shifts towards a g-funk vibe talking about killin’ bitches softly leaving the candy paint drippin’ while the 2nd single “Dance in White” wraps up the EP with a nu disco outro.
It wouldn’t really be much of a surprise to me if a great deal of Brabus & Lorinsers was made for Tha Playa$ Manual II sessions considering most of it retains the smooth g-funk/Mobb aesthetics of what Ramirez did last summer when he gave us a spiritual successor to the most beloved entry in his discography, but there are some moments that remind me of his early days in G*59 so it’s kinda like you’re getting a mix of his styles both old & new.
Score: 7/10