King Chip is a 39 year old rapper from Cleveland, Ohio notable for being 1/2 of The Almighty GloryUS alongside KiD CuDi. In almost 2 decades, he’s also carved a path of his out by putting out 7 mixtapes as well as a couple full-lengths & EPs with the most recent being the 2023 sophomore effort Charles Worth. For his 9th mixtape however, Chuck Inglish of The Cool Kids has locked in with Chip tha Ripper for a sequel to the latter’s most celebrated body of work on Christmas Day: Gift Raps.
“Take Your Turn” begins with a synthesizer-based boom bap instrumental drawing a line between either being with him or standing in his way just before Denzel Curry, Larry June & for some pointless reason MGK all join Chip for the 4th installment of the “Fat Raps” saga. “Don’t Ask Me for No Money” smoothly makes it clear that doesn’t want anybody coming up to him if the only thing they want is the cash while the funky “Jake” talks about not hanging around weirdos.
As for “These Days”, we have Chuck sonically shifting things back to a boom bap vibe so Chip can tell the audience how he’s been living lately just before “Put Your Seatbelt On” rambunctiously speaks of acting wild for an entire weekend. “I’m Like” featuring Symba takes the pop rap/trap direction in general going through their partners’ phones & after the “Cleveland Bih” interlude, “Toss It” pushes the 2nd half forward with an 109 second strip club anthem.
“Poison Around Me” talks about the difficulty of finding something to eat when he’s surrounded by nothing but toxins while “Ice Cold Night (Santa Save Me)” asks for St. Nicholas to come out & pay him for being so good as of late. “Serial Vibe Kiler” vivid takes a couple minutes to the story of a buzzkill & appropriately, the outro serves as a sequel to the original Gift Raps’ closer “The Bio” taking an introspective approach to the songwriting.
Charles Worth marked a decent return for King Chip a couple years earlier, but Gift Raps 2: Rapping Paper celebrates the holiday season with a successor to Chip’s most celebrated body of work that lives up to the hype of it’s predecessor during my adolescence when I was finishing up middle school. Chuck Inglish gives him the most consistent batch of beats we’ve heard the Cleveland artist rhyming over in quite some time & Chip tha Ripper’s at the hungriest he’s been all decade.
Score: 4.5/5
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