Norwalk, Connecticut emcee Chris Webby tapping in with The Roots’ original keyboardist & former Aftermath Entertainment in-house producer Scott Storch for his 4th EP. Getting introduced to him during my senior year of high school when his full-length studio debut album Chemically Imbalanced under his own label 80HD Music in tandem with MNRK Music Group, he would go on to spend the late 2010s & the 2020s up until last Christmas doing the Wednesday series of mixtapes. 88 Milligrams linking up with one of my personal favorite producers had me thinking it was gonna be his finest extended play of his career.
After the “ASMR” intro, “Perfect Storm” begins the EP by pushing the hands on the doomsday clock over an instrumental that Scott Storch would’ve made in the 2000s during & succeeding his time with Aftermath whereas “In My Baggie” works in some pianos to talk about taking pills off the shelf at 12. “Put ‘Em High” cinematically cautions that no one wants to be a hero tonight while the trap-influenced “Running Scared” talks about playing the cards until they hit.
“Pyro” nears the end of 88 Milligrams with a beat throwing it back to either “Candy Shop” or “Just a Lil Bit” off of 50 Cent’s sophomore effort The Massacre celebrating it’s 2 decade anniversary earlier this spring talking about coming up in the spot to burn the place down leading into the cloudy “Rollercoaster” sending off the EP with Chris comparing life to a ride the way it goes up & down for roughly 5 & a half minutes.
As somebody who got introduced to him over a decade ago, Chris Webby has come a long way from his frat rap days in the past 15 years & 88 Milligrams comes right off the conclusion of the 80HD Music founder’s prolific Wednesday tapes with the most I’ve enjoyed his music in a while & easily his most cohesive EP on my opinion. Scott Storch’s production takes a nostalgic turn to when he was all over the airwaves as an opposed to adapting to modern sounds or techniques like having a producer tag on Dummy Boy & Chris gets in his baggie lyrically.
Score: 9/10