12

the take

A Westside Gunn album that doesn't feel like a WSG album? I'm not sure how I feel about that. I've recently gotten around to checking out WSG's "11" and "Still Praying" and enjoyed both projects. With that in mind, I had some pretty high expectations for "12". Overall, I found this album to be quite amazing. There are at times where the production is just decent for Griselda's standards ("VEERT"), but the midway point of the album is really the peak for everything. The tracks' execution, the verses, and the hooks are high-quality Griselda shit that I'm used to hearing by them. "GUMBO YAYA" and "EAST MIAMI" are two definite standouts for me, especially the latter. My only gripe about "12" is that it doesn't feel like a Westside Gunn project. Sure, WSG appears and spits his verses (without the absurd amount of adlibs, unfortunately), but he feels more like a curator than usual, with Estee Nack and Stove God Cooks appearing on multiple songs. The features aren't bad at all, but they do get kind of... stale after hearing their voices over and over again, but maybe because I expected "12" to have more WSG on it. "12" is an album with quite a few highs to make this an enjoyable listen, though I kind of wished the end result of this would be different, though.