Still Praying

the take

It's difficult for me to not enjoy Westside Gunn's music. Every project I've listened to by him so far has been either good or amazing. "Still Praying" is no different. Well, I guess except the only difference is that this was hosted by DJ Drama. As someone who grew up in the mixtape era and spent countless hours on LiveMixtapes, DatPiff, Spinrilla, etc.... downloading mixtapes, I'm glad DJ Drama brought a sense of nostalgia with him hollering all over the project. Music wise, this is an incredible body of work. Westside Gunn has always been one to have an ear to curating a Griselda project, whether it's his own or other artists' albums. In terms of rapping, Westside Gunn doesn't do anything different than before, but with the more laid-back production on here, his vocal performances work really well to the point the tracks come off as kind of exquisite to me. Hell, even the features were solid, especially Rome Streetz with the best feature on the album on "Underground King". Following up a mixtape released a day before (that I haven't listened to yet, unfortunately) with another mixtape that's incredible, "Still Praying" is one of those ones that sound both modern and retro at the same time.