Big Sean dropped his new album Detroit 2 this week and I’m hyped for it. I haven’t had a lot of 2020 rap releases stick to me this year and it’s likely because of the way we’re consuming music in this Covid period of our lives. I no longer have drives to and from work or the gym so that cuts down my listening time by at least an hour everyday. During the day I’m listening to instrumentals to focus while working the ole 9-5 so before work and after work is when I can catch up on what’s new in rap and hip hop. Most of the time I catch a hot single that the Spotify algorithms feed me but then with the rate that new music drops nowadays, it’s sadly forgotten days later. But my hopes for this Big Sean album were high. I liked him on that “Berzerk” track with Ferg and I also thought he rapped his ass off on “Overtime” that dropped last year. Sean seemed to me like he was in album mode.
Spending so much time indoors has me going back to my boom bap lyrical type of hip hop. I want to hear some emcees spittin some good bars over some dope beats and 2020 releases from artists like Jay Electronica, Freddie Gibbs & Alchemist, Felt, Griselda (the whole crew!), Blu, Run the Jewels, and Royce Da 5’9” have kept me pressing the rewind button this year. I’ve completely fallen off of the trap rap club bangers type vibes I used to be on as I’m now 40 with a kid on the way and I just can’t hang with the young go-hards anymore. I still try to keep my fingers on the pulse of the game though and will always try to stay a up just a little bit. But some clever rhymes and dope metaphors along with a creative flow will get me every time. Big Sean checks all those boxes and he always has a good ear for beats so this album drop is good timing for me. I listened to the first song on the album “Why Would I Stop” and when Sean started kicking his verse I knew it was time to go back through his whole catalog.
“This shit the antidote, this the cure cancer flow
Stop a pandemic and the globe
The product of old ‘Ye chopping up the sample flow
Dealer and Pimp C, the triller
This shit might go too trill for Triller, though
I see you critical
I’m the hospitable
Favorite rappers, I donе cut they umbilicals”
I first caught wind of Big Sean back in 2010 with his mixtape Finally Famous Volume 3. My homie Alan was always a Big Sean fan so he made sure I never missed a heater from the young spitter out of Detroit. The first song I remember getting really into from Big Sean was “Supa Dupa Lemonade” which was included on nearly every CDR I made for friends. “Supa Dupa Lemonade” also marked my intro to Gucci Mane as it was Gucci’s original “Lemonade” track which was the beat that Sean was rapping over. Shout out to Bangladesh on the beat! Big Sean just seemed at home over that piano and he seemed like a veteran emcee that had been in the game for a minute. I was impressed with this young rapper out of the motor city.
When I first got into Big Sean I wasn’t aware of his allegiance with Kanye. In what seems to be a too good to be true type of story, Sean actually first met Kanye outside of a radio station in Detroit back in 2005 where Kanye gave him a 16 bar chance to prove his talent. Sean took advantage of that opportunity and left Kanye with a demo tape of his. 2 years later, Kanye signed Big Sean to his label, GOOD Music. From there Big Sean released 3 Finally Famous mixtapes followed by being featured as a part of Kanye’s Good Fridays weekly single releases in 2010 which helped big buzz for Kanye’s classic album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Kanye’s GOOD Music label had an amazing roster and he also had his pick of the litter when it came to features. Sean rode that wave on his way to his 2011 release of his first studio album, Finally Famous.
Sean’s allegiance with Kanye really paid dividends in 2012 with the release of “Mercy” which was the first single off of Kanye’s Cruel Summer compilation. And while Big Sean was known in the rap world up until this point, this I believe was his true coming out party. I can’t put into words how big of a club banger “Mercy” was when it dropped. Big Sean hitting leadoff on the opening verse of the track worked so well. He set the table for that Pusha T verse which built momentum for Ye’s verse over the Giorgio Moroder Scarface sample and then 2 Chainz came in hitting clean up to hit the track straight out the park. Man… “Mercy” is dope on so many levels.
Big Sean became a rapper I always checked for after that verse on “Mercy.” Big Sean’s critically acclaimed mixtape Detroit came out on September 5th, 2012 which crashed the famous mixtape site DatPiff on its release date. The mixtape was downloaded over 500K times in the first few days. Heavy hitting features included J. Cole, Kendrick, Juicy J, Royce Da 5’9 and more.
The release of Detroit caught a tidal wave when Kanye dropped “Clique” one day later in 2012. Most want to just poke fun at Kanye for his shenanigans but dude is a musical genius. Every step of his is calculated and the 2012 buzz he built for his label, his Cruel Summer compilation, and Sean’s Detroit mixtape was legendary. Ye, Jay, and Sean was a dope trio and “Clique” was a smash that still holds up now in 2020.
Sean dropped Hall of Fame in 2013 but it wasn’t until he dropped Dark Sky Paradise in 2015 until I felt he really found his lane on a studio album. Possibly it was because he signed that management deal with Jigga over at Roc Nation a year earlier? Dark Sky Paradise was packed with great features from Drake, Kanye, and E-40 and I feel that has been his best piece of work as an artist. Big Sean was SO DAMN HUNGRY on this album and his confidence and braggadocio was through the roof. He went bar-for-bar with Drizzy on “Blessings” but then had the versatility to swing over on some west coast shit on “I Don’t F*ck With You” with DJ Mustard on the beat and 40 on the money feature. Sean always had a great ear for beats and Dark Sky Paradise album really exemplified this.
Big Sean had the rap world in the palm of his hands after Dark Sky Paradise but pivoted to show his versatility on the TWENTY88 joint album with girlfriend at the time, Jhene Aiko. Sean always worked well in the R&B space and his songs with Jhene have always stood out. It’s nice to see them keeping their music relationship going on the new album even with them no longer being an item. That’s true love right there.
Sean stayed active with releases in 2017 with 2 albums that year. First was I Decided which was a nice follow up to Dark Sky Paradise and then he dropped his Double or Nothing collab album with Metro Boomin on the beats later that year. Sean must have notebooks of rhymes in the stash because he just keeps on going with the lyrics. It was no surprise to hear that Sean’s mom was a school teacher because Sean stays dropping knowledge over dope instrumentation. This trend continues with his new album Detroit 2 which is the sequel to his popular Detroit mixtape which was released 8 years ago today.
Detroit 2 stands out as a solid rap album in an era where most rappers only have a hot single or two. Big Sean has been putting in work for years and he’s the type of emcee that keep listeners on their toes with witty punchlines that has you pressing rewind constantly. He also touches a lot on real issues like mental health which I love. Most mainstream rappers are scared to open themselves up over a beat but Sean goes in. He is never scared to walk you through some difficult shit that he’s gone through in his life like his heart troubles back when he was 19 on “Lucky Me.” Sean has issues like all of us. He is very relatable and that’s exactly why I’m digging this new album so much. While to me Kendrick and Cole hold the current hip hop and rap crowns, Big Sean is right under them with a drive that can take him to the top. Shout out to Big Sean and the whole Motor City on a dope album.
Listening to this new album made me do a lot of research for this article while going back to listening to old albums and mixtapes of his. It was only right that I put a playlist of my favorite songs of his together. Dude has a deep discography and can cover many different moods through his music. Hope you enjoy!