Album Review: Y’all Won by Veeze
As a surprise tape of illicit leaks, Veeze keeps his voice level no matter how big the brag gets, reading absurd money talk, reciting his own bank statement. Winning has rarely sounded this tired.
Imagine a luxurious watch outlet, with a male exchanging one Patek for another in order to achieve total wrist and fitting compatibility. Veeze’s “Tesla Pill” with its perpetual decoration stays in the same location as he walks right to the place, and it is a blurred noise that fondly compares with “wipe my nose with hundred bill” and “I’m ‘bout to start me a non-profit.” The same representing model is employed by most Detroit rappers. His level read is only his. “Ain’t stoppin’ ’til I get a billy out it like Hannah Montana dad,” he claims, even though the line is meant to explode, it’s as smooth as the act of offering the salt to a stranger. A White Chicks punchline shares a bar with a death threat, both swallowed at the same low volume.
In the beginning, it is easy for skeptics to charge one. Eleven nearly identical rooms, eleven representations of the same flex, and “New Clothes” is their free ticket to witness the show. “I’m too cold on ‘em/Got two hoes on me/I’m goin’ on shoppin’ sprees/Puttin’ new clothes on me,” he chants, the same four lines circling back like a man pacing a closet. Buried in the loop sits a quieter admission: “A junkie gettin’ lonely.” That confession alights at the exact pitch of “I used to be broke, no longer,” sung by someone who has stopped believing the news.
As a child, he used to imagine robbing people in True Religions and wishing to play point guard in the NBA one day. Veeze created the typical Detroit rapper story, but instead of maintaining it, he did not let it go soft. The Pistons could have used him, the joke on “Old Shit” goes, except the drug test comes back dirty every time, and the bit stays funny right up until it doubles as the reason the basketball career never happened. An aunt gets an eight a month while her nephew waits on her refill. Painkillers ride in the Goyard like a first aid kit. “They should write my name in the Naismith,” he mutters, present tense, still claiming a Hall of Fame for a career nobody was going to give him.
Veeze appears to be extremely energetic on the track “BirdMan,” where his slur loosens and the words flow easily to him. “Still Grinding” portrays him the most without anything new to say. “Came from seven mile, then he crossed the seven seas,” he raps, reaching for status he already pinned down earlier on “Bruce Wayne Coupe” with twice the bite. A whole song goes by while he treads water. The dead weight hangs on to the same looseness that lets the best material breathe, the bargain a holdover strikes that a finished album never would.
In 2023, he got his own label. The time he spent after it was, of course, just avoiding interviews and running to “studio rat,” and he was isolated out of choice long before it turned into a complaint. By the time rubber band, the loner pose has turned into the daily scent of it: “I don’t even know these niggas, nigga, I don’t even trust these niggas” where the words shrink into monotone until the whole track is one man counting all the people he trusts not with arms length. A laughing Lil Wayne sitting next to him in the car, his sound is of the only passenger. Trust.
On “BirdMan,” Veeze shows off a fortune he cannot spend time with, and the journey hits over what the money cost at every point. He raps a brother who “just went platinum and now he in the federal prison” as if platinum and prison were two prices for the same item. The place he lives in a fancy house with a nice view, but does not feel safe because of the surrounding gunmen, sounds more like a prison he has to escape from than a trophy. He pours another drink so that he can sleep and the brown stash, which is the egg-layer behind him, is of no use to him. “I wonder if God ever forgave this much sinnin’,” he says, already sure of the answer, and then he concretizes his statement by saying it will already be a number and his assurance is the next number will be empty just like this one. “But I ain’t no role model” whiffs as a confession should. Winning has caused fatigue. “I gotta go to sleep just to sober up,” he says in “Lose It All Today,” which is the most close to rest this man can get.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Wrong Place, Wrong Time,” “Old Shit,” “Lose It All Today”