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Hi, everyone. Yeahthony Yeahtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Denzel Curry project, King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2.

Florida rapper, songwriter, lyricist extraordinaire Denzel Curry. He's back.

It's been a while since his last record, a couple of years since Meld My Eyes, See Your Future, a really important album in the Denzel Curry catalog, not just because of how far he ventured into jazz rap and conscious hip hop, but this record is also a very conceptual and self-reflective record for Denzel, where he really let his fans into the progression of how he changed as an artist and as a person over the years, taking more accountability for his actions and mental health.

Because it's important to remember that Denzel is not even 30 years old at the time of me shooting this review, and he dropped his first mixtape at the start of the 2010s, way back when he was 16 years old. So, long-time fans have not just had the opportunity, but the privilege of seeing this man, through his art, become a totally different person over the past decade-plus.

And one thing that has made Denzel's catalog more and more interesting as he continues to build it is just how multifaceted it is, how Yin and Yang his progression tends to be, because what Denzel Curry you're getting really depends on the project. Are you getting the dark, moody, high-concept Denzel Curry as we had on Ta13oo, or is it more of the in-your-face, cutthroat, anthemic, rapid-fire flow type Denzel that we get on a record such as Imperial? Again, depends on the album and also depends on what the vibe of the last record was. So of course, given that Denzel's previous album, Meld My Eyes, See Your Future, was his most personal and nuanced album yet, I'm not really surprised to see that this newest one here is maybe his most grimey, simplistic, and explosive.

The record also fits into this greater trend that we've been seeing in numerous lanes of hip hop lately, where many artists are presenting us an experience that's like a mixtape, but it's actually an album. What I mean by that is that the sound and vibe of this thing is just so performatively grimey and rough around the edges because it's supposed to sound like some random low-budget cassette or homespun project that you might come across if you stumbled upon it at some Memphis swap meet in the '90s or the 2000s. And even if it is nasty on the ears at some points, there's still a lot of fire there. There's still a lot of heart in it.

I mean, the entire project starts off with the sound of a cassette being opened or slid into a tape deck, along with a spoken word intro from Kingpin Skinny Pimp, an underground Memphis rap legend whose '90s output has gained a cult following in the Internet age among rap fans who have specifically become obsessed with this particular era of Southern hip hop. For years up until this point in 2024, we've been hearing tons and tons of artists rehash this exact thing and build massive success off of it, be that Lil Ugly Mane or A$AP Rocky or $uicideboy$, just to name a few. It would take an entire video to explain to you just how exactly this Southern hip hop revival of the early 2010s pretty much gave us the rap landscape we have today.

Ultimately, what I'm trying to say here is that what Denzel is doing on this project is nothing new, not just because it's literally something from the distant past, but also, again, we've been hearing people reiterate this thing for a minute now. However, Denzel is an artist I would absolutely humor attempting to do something like this, not just because he's a great lyricist and a Southern hip-hop artist himself, but he's also somebody who pays close attention to things like vibes and esthetics and details.

We already see and notice this from every he's released so far, having a completely different tone and instrumental palate and energy to it. Plus, on top of it, this era of Southern hip hop has clearly, for a long time, served as a point of inspiration for a lot of music that Denzel has put out. At the very least, I would hope that Denzel would go into a project like this with the aspiration of capturing this sound accurately. The fact that he wants to do that is communicated in many ways on this record, but specifically on one bar that comes off the "BLACK FLAG FREESTYLE" where he says, 'Yeah, I used to smart talk / but now I had to dumb it down,' which I think says something about Denzel's process on this record, even if he is underselling it a little bit, because obviously the flow and the lyrics on this track are not fast, they're not complex, and it doesn't need to be. It's an homage.

Denzel is trying to strike a certain balance, create a particular vibe, and delivering something more complicated than this is not going to do that. He wants to give you something dark and intoxicating and cold-blooded, and he executes that perfectly with this understated near-monotone delivery with a slow tempo and wheezy, dusty horn samples droning in the background, the effect of which is absolutely positively hypnotic. And what's even greater is there's a very intense feature from That Mexican OT on the back end of the track where he is rolling his Rs like a motherfucker. Overall, I think this "BLACK FLAG FREESTYLE" pretty much lays out what you're in for on the rest of the record pretty clearly.

As far as basic elements and vibes, from there, it's really a matter of variation between levels of intensity. You have "HIT THE FLOOR", which is this heavy, super distorted, almost industrial piece of trap that has an old-school SoundCloud appeal to it, which, of course, is why Ski Mask the Slump God, is on it, and he sounds fantastic. So you have moments like that, and you also have Cold Pimp, a sweet oasis in the middle of all of the mischief and mayhem throughout this project, which is a very glamorous, laidback piece of Southern hip hop with some super rich piano string samples, buttery, buttery vocal leads from none other than Ty Dolla's Sign. And then on the back end, we have Juicy J bringing some pimpology on a guest verse that's pretty quality, too.

There's quite a bit of contrast among the tracks across this tracklist, which is only further enhanced by songs like "ULTRA SHXT", the first full track to kick this album off. It's really a take on that classic old-school Memphis rap sound, but in a more atmospheric cloud rap way. It sounds like a dream, but it's still packed with catchy flows and one-liners. The pace picks up deeper into the project with "HOT ONE", which has killer features from TiaCorine, who brings a very interesting inflection to the table. Also, A$AP Ferg, who brings along with him his trademark washed-out, reverbed, shouty background adlibs. Things intensify even further on this project with, "G'Z UP", 'G'z up / G'z up / G'z up,' with all these aggressive in your face repetitions - this is exactly the thing that you want on a song like this. It's going to drill that earworm into your head with some creepy synth work and nimble triplet flows, too.

Now, even though Denzel is dumbing it down on this record and going more for vibes than he has bars, that doesn't mean there aren't standout lyrical moments across the record. Like when he says, 'I don't trust nobody because some want me to suffer / Even Jesus called a dude out on his last supper.' Also the Cosby bar on this track, the stutter bar on this track, both moments where Denzel is absolutely clever and unhinged. There's also multiple tracks on here, like "WISHLIST", where I think he's delivering a lot of food for thought, trying to get people to think more about their stability and their money and not just willing that over to any thirsty or attention hungry woman that might cross their path. My God, he says, 'She got her titties done / and I guess they look all right / They call her Princess Peach / She down in every dude's pipe.' Oh, my God.

Beyond that, I would say the record is a little feature-dependent, which I suppose for the most part is fine, especially since Denzel seems to pull some pretty good and standout performances from his guests across the record. He has very appropriate feature choices throughout the project as well. Either artists who are directly connected to the eras of hip hop that he is referencing or younger ones who clearly have proven to have a reverence for it, be that Texas rapper Mike Dimes or A$AP Rocky or 2 Chainz, who is obviously a veteran, but his mainstream Fame and popularity came a bit more recently.

So I will say, even if this isn't Denzel's most lyrically impressive project to date, it's certainly not trying to be that. And yeah, it's not necessarily conceptual in a high-minded way in the way that Ta13oo or Melt My Eyes is, Denzel's dedication to his craft shines through. Because obviously, when you pay attention to the finer details and esthetics of Mischievous South, Denzel went into this thing with a certain angle in mind, and he had to pay attention to very specific things in order to pull all of that off.

He wanted it to sound, again, like a dirty, filthy, old-school Southern hip hop mixtape, and it very much does. He nailed that. He wanted it to reflect a certain era of the genre, and that means wrapping a certain way. That means favoring certain types of instrumentals. And he most certainly did that with very tasteful, very colorful, very appropriate beats. And he brought on a bunch of features that fit the same vibe, too.

My biggest issues with this project overall is that it is a tad bit short at 34 minutes, and with it being so heavy on features when a guest verse is not that great, it does tend to affect the momentum of the album and the track quite a bit. Maxo Kream and Armani White, specifically, I thought could have gone a bit harder or done something a bit more standout.

With all of that being said, I still think this came out to be a really great project from Denzel, even if on its face, it's not quite as original or as personal as a Melt My Eyes or as a Ta13oo, which is why I'm feeling a decent to strong 8 on this thing.

Anthony Fantano, Denzel Curry, Forever.