Album Review: Part 3 by 42 Dugg

Detroit street rap’s most paranoid chronicler returns with another status report from inside the siege.

Courtesy of 4PF/CMG/Interscope Records.

Street rap from the Midwest used to mean something different before Detroit started sending rappers who sounded like they were dictating witness statements into Auto-Tune. The city’s current class keeps inventory out loud, tallying who got hit, who got time, who got paper, who got quiet when it mattered. 42 Dugg sits at the center of that class, scratchy-voiced and suspicious of everyone, running through dead homies’ names with the same frequency other rappers reserve for women. Part 3 is his third numbered tape in a series that performs the role of an ongoing testimony, another deposition from someone who can’t stop counting what he’s lost.

The counting never stops on this record. Bodies, dollars, years, friends. On “It Is What It Is,” he lays out the arithmetic plain: “I lost five homies, they lost ten/So even though you cryin’, ma, it is what it is.” That’s the whole thesis in two bars. Grief gets acknowledged and then immediately converted into a threat. The chorus keeps returning to Val, Reece, Rob, Mel—names that recur across the tape, entries in an account that won’t balance. Lil Baby and Rylo Rodriguez show up on this track, but Dugg’s verses hit different. “I miss you more than ever, pictures ain’t doin’ no justice/They say I lost a friend and I told ‘em I lost a brother/Told ‘em I lost a cousin, told ‘em I lost an uncle.” He stacks the losses fast, four family designations in four bars, then pivots immediately to “Ma, it’s hard to cope, but fuck it, I’m gettin’ money.” The coping mechanism is the money. The money is the only proof he’s still winning.

Loyalty gets tested constantly, and most people fail. The spoken intro on “Fake Friends” sets the standard. Fifty-thousand-dollar play for a day one, no cut taken. But the standard gets harder: “You ain’t write when I was gone, don’t write now.” Prison correspondence as the ultimate loyalty metric. The verse sprawls out into a full inventory of operations (Roxies, sebastians, three states, twenty pages, thirty-five Gs) but keeps returning to that central wound. “You ain’t write me, nigga, fuck you/Got indicted, still thuggin’.”

The inventory turns inward on “Goin Through It,” where Dugg names his regrets specifically: “Only thing I regret is fallin’ out with Tez/Only thing I regret is not answerin’ for Nel.” Two failed connections, both with names attached. The hook delivers the damage report: “I miss all of my friends/I probably won’t see Val again.” That “probably” carries weight. It’s a realistic assessment based on incarceration schedules and funeral attendance. “And I still miss Neff/Been holdin’ shit down, ain’t too many of us left.” The deaths and the prison sentences have thinned the ranks to a point where the survivors are just trying to stay standing.

The features all come from rappers who talk the same way Dugg does. Dead friends, active warrants, money that doesn’t fix anything. G Herbo brings that Chicago paranoia to “Still On Dat,” still claiming the ‘Raq, still talking about closing his eyes and tapping switches. Two rappers from dying cities who refuse to move differently despite the money. “You worth some M’s, why you still on that?” Herbo asks himself. No answer needed. EST Gee slides into the Louisville cold on “No Fakin”: “Have your momma cryin’ on the news, she want justice/I don’t feel bad ‘cause she sad, nigga, fuck him.” No sympathy in the building.

GloRilla shifts the energy toward something lighter on “To the Side,” a back-and-forth about transactional relationships where both parties know the score. “I fuck with sugar daddies that buy me Cuban links/He know I’m ‘bout to ask for somethin’ when I call him stink.” She’s running game and narrating it simultaneously. Dugg plays along: “I spend at least a hundred, ten if bro ‘nem want her.” The women get rated, the transactions get itemized, and nobody pretends it’s romantic.

The doubters get addressed directly when Doughboy Clay shows up for “It Get Deeper Pt. 3.” “This for everybody told me that I fell off/This for everybody said I wouldn’t get it back goin’.” Dugg knows the narrative around him. The prison time, the label drama, the commercial decline from Free Dem Boyz. He answers it by refusing to change anything. “I ain’t rich yet, but I’m well-off.” ‘Well-off’ means the operation is running, the dead are mourned, and the score is still being kept.

The production across Part 3 stays in the pocket that Detroit has carved out. Drums that punch through everything, melodic loops that feel mournful even when the subject matter turns to violence or women. Helluva’s production tag on “Thick One” announces the club track, and Skilla Baby turns the feature into a celebration of body types that somehow never loses its menace. “She want the rich one, bitch, pick one/It’s a gang of us in here, who tryna spin somethin’?” Even the party track keeps one eye on the door.

The business continues on “WE NOT DONE,” where the retaliation continues. The question of who pulled the trigger stays answered but unspoken in public. What holds Part 3 together is Dugg’s absolute consistency about what matters. The dead friends get named. He names dead friends, tests living ones, counts money, rates women, inventories operations, and threatens enemies on every song. The formula isn't complicated, but Dugg executes it with a precision that makes the content feel necessary. “Under no circumstances will I ever tell,” he declares on “Goin Through It,” invoking the code that structures everything else. Dugg came home from federal prison in 2024 to a music industry that had moved on and a fanbase that hadn’t. Part 3 doesn’t chase new sounds as it just keeps the count going. The dead are still dead, the living are still suspect, and the trap phone is still jumping.

Solid (★★★½☆)

Favorite Track(s): “It Is What It Is,” “Goin Through It,” “It Get Deeper Pt. 3”