On December 4, rapper G-Eazy released his sophomore album, “When It's Dark Out.” The album has a track list of 17 songs, with a deluxe edition featuring a bonus track, and follows his first album “These Things Happen” as a direct sequel, which is clearly depicted on the cover of the album. G has made an impact in the rap world since the release of his first album and is widely considered one of the next best rappers. With an album like this one, it isn’t hard to believe.
The first part of the new album is more about the life that G has now come upon. He talks a lot about money, fame, and how he worked hard for this and now gets to enjoy it all.The first song on the album, “Random,” states directly that what he has now is not random and only comes to the best. Now that he has this fame, he wants more and thinks about all the things he dreamed of wanting that he can now have. This is depicted in the song “One Of Them,” in which G lists numerous expensive items and says how he wants them. The song also features another talented rapper in Big Sean. A lot of the first part of the album is G deservedly bragging about his fame now and how it is his time to take over.
In terms of features, G-Eazy makes use of many different artists on his tracks and makes sure he gives a lot of diversity throughout the album. G utilizes many of the artists from the Bay area, his hometown, such as E-40, one of his mentors.The use of these features, male and female, really add something to the album and make them more than just G spitting lines. For instance, the use of Chris Brown in the song “Drifting” gives the song a crossover feel that many artists attempt but many cannot succeed at. While the crossover was nice, I would have liked it if he rapped from his heart a little more.
In the second half of the album, that is exactly what he does. He lets his feelings be known by rapping about his opinions and his life. He raps about image in the song “What If,” where he talks about how things would be different in the world if so many people did not care about how people looked and just focused on quality, talent, and ideas. The line that shows that the most is “What if the game didn’t care I was white, would I still be selling out shows every night” because he wonders whether it's his talent that got him where he is or if it was just the fact that his image was not like those of most rappers.In terms of his life, G makes sure people sees his soft side in the song “Everything Will Be OK.” In this song, G Eazy talks to everyone he left behind, saying everything will end up being OK even though so much has happened. One of the incidents that affected him a lot was when he found his mother’s girlfriend dead and he talks about that in this song. The second half of the album is all emotion and, personally, I liked that a lot.
In my opinion, this album was very good and blew me away in some aspects. Whenever G-Eazy raps from his heart, it is something special. He has some terrific verses throughout this album where he goes off and gives you the chills. I think it is another great product put out by him and will continue to push him to the top. It may have some minor issues with some of the crossovers, but I would still say this is a 5 out of 5 and my favorite product he has put out so far.
