Detroit, Michigan rapper Lelo coming off his full-length debut New Detroit last summer to drop his 7th extended play: Signing to 10K Projects a couple years ago, he would make his presence known more widely in the local trap scene by putting out his 4th EP Nightingale not too long after landing a record deal & gained even more exposure a month later by dropping the single “No Contempt” on SoundCloud. LifeAfterDogshit as well as When It’s Over & New Detroit would further increase his profile, returning 10 months since the latter to drop Mastiff.
“Hollowed Bricks” begins with a luxurious backdrop, some hi-hats & 808s talking about living before sitting in the casket whereas “Blueprint” featuring Apolloscase brings a wavier Detroit sound to the picture so both of them can trade verses with each other. “Dialect” ends the 1st leg of the EP explaining that it’s a whole different kind of talk whenever one brings up money around him & not inserting himself around those who haven’t seen shit.
To kick off the 2nd half, things got for a pluggier vibe instrumentally so he can talk about staying “Hoodrich” until his very last breath while “Monetize” brings a subdued tone to the beat flexing his ability of selling this shit back to the trap like he didn’t already begin to make some chips off it. The closing track “Down to Earth” spends Mastiff’s final 3 minutes blending a soul sample with hi-hats talking about having bigger dreams & a few telling him to die by this chain he has.
It made me happy to hear that more ears got put onto Lelo the summer prior ditching the trap elements of When It’s Over so he could make a turn towards a cloudier Detroit trap direction & create something entirely new out of interpolating many of the city’s popular sounds, swapping out the cloudier influences in favor of standard trap for Mastiff & incorporating some occasional plugg undertones to further represent the Motor City’s past & present.
Score: 3.5/5
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