Mozzy - Gangland Landlord

Sacramento rapper Mozzy wasn’t nominated in any category of the 2018 Grammy Awards, yet by the ceremony’s end, he’d have a victory to call his own. “As my guy Mozzy say,” said Kendrick Lamar during his acceptance speech for Best Rap Album, “You know, God up top.” The superstar’s cosign appears at the end of Gangland Landlord’s “No Way”; the first track on the project, it's gleefully menacing, Mozzy rapping over a sample of an R&B vocal run dragged to the point that it sounds like tortured wailing. The song sets the tone for an 18-track ride from the prolific young star who’s released multiple albums annually since his 2015 breakout project, Bladadah.

On Gangland Landlord, Mozzy’s first solo full-length of 2018, the rapper delivers callbacks to the West Coast classics he grew up on, including a gloomy deconstruction of the beat for Luniz’s “I Got 5 On It” (“Not Impressive”) and a reinterpretation of 2Pac’s “Thugz Mansion” with LA hip-hop diplomats Ty Dolla $ign and YG. The album is impressively feature-heavy on the whole, boasting guests spots from YFN Lucci, Blac Youngsta, ScHoolboy Q, and Too $hort (among others)—proving that Kendrick Lamar isn’t the only one who can recognize the future of West Coast gangsta rap when he hears it.