Anniversaries: 90059 by Jay Rock
With 90059, it’s an artistic coming-of-age—proof that Jay Rock can carry an album on perspective and heart—and it’s a hinge point that propelled the next phase.
Los Angeles hip-hop sat at a crossroads during the summer of 2011. The club-ready “ratchet” bounce associated with DJ Mustard and the radio presence of YG, Tyga, and Ty Dolla $ign were rising, signaling a new West Coast moment. In that climate, Watts native Jay Rock finally released his long-delayed debut album, Follow Me Home, after years of label limbo. By July, the record felt like a dispatch from an earlier era— a gritty gangsta rap opus arriving as tastes shifted toward sleeker, club-driven beats. Its singles had stalled, and the release arrived alongside a quieter revolution. That same month, his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmate Kendrick Lamar put out Section.80, an insular, poetic project that marked a sea change for West Coast rap. Section.80 lacked obvious radio singles or Mustard-style bangers; it offered interior storytelling and social focus. It also pulled focus from Follow Me Home. Once positioned as TDE’s flagship artist, Jay Rock suddenly watched the younger Compton protégé surge ahead. The lukewarm commercial return for Follow Me Home—barely scraping the Billboard Top 100—made clear that a straightforward gangsta formula wasn’t matching the moment. A new archetype for West Coast MCs was emerging—less about street bravado, more about personal narrative—and Kendrick became its beacon. TDE’s center of gravity shifted, and Jay Rock stood at a crossroads.
Kendrick’s breakout with good kid, m.A.A.d city in 2012 and the runs that followed turned TDE from a local indie into a hub for thoughtful, writerly rap. By mid-decade, the label’s identity leaned into perspective and concept: ScHoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, SZA, and Isaiah Rashad each reinforced that lane. For Jay Rock—the OG who delivered TDE’s first album—the shift was clarifying. Chasing mass appeal with big features and a hardened image had limits. The lesson was simple: a distinct point of view outlasts cosigns and image. Jay Rock took it in. He faded from the foreground, supported his Black Hippy crew, and sharpened his craft. Four years passed without an album while TDE’s rise made the value of voice undeniable. When he was ready to re-enter, he knew he’d have to peel back the armor and let listeners in.
Jay Rock’s sophomore album, 90059, arrived in 2015 as a re-introduction— a simmering portrait of an artist grown. Even the rollout signaled patience: the release date hinged on pre-orders, a strategy that built ground-level anticipation. The title is the zip code for his Watts home, a choice wired into the music. “That’s the whole concept of my album—trying to make it out,” he said at the time. “People in my neighborhood… we’re all confined in this one box. That’s our zip code, 90059.” Fittingly, the record wrestles with confinement and escape—aspiration, conflict, survival. It also steps away from cookie-cutter posturing. Instead of hiding behind a pose, Jay Rock digs into the human stakes beneath the gangbanger veneer—doubt, pride, hope, regret. Less bluster, more candor.
No record here captures that shift better than “Money Trees Deuce,” the lead single and thematic center. Written as a sequel to Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees” (where Jay Rock delivered a pivotal verse in 2012), “Money Trees Deuce” sets the album’s mood: reflective, panoramic, and more nuanced than his past work. Over a moody, jazz-tinged groove with wistful sax and melancholy keys, he weighs the promises and costs of the hustle. Where the original daydreamed about fast money as a stopgap for pain, Jay Rock’s version feels rooted in the grind’s present tense. His weathered voice cuts through the haze with steady resolve. “Imagine Rock up in that field where the options ain’t so audible,” he begins—a callback to his earlier line (“Imagine Rock up in them projects”) that signals how far he’s come. Melancholy runs under the track: cycles of violence and ambition, acknowledged without glamor or hand-wringing. He apologizes to friends he may leave behind—“no hard feelings… that’s just how it is,” he mutters—owning the human cost of escape. Each verse reads like a letter from a man at the edge of destiny and danger. A spoken-word outro, rain-soundtracked, grants a quiet release. The song encapsulates 90059: still rooted in Watts, now seeing the struggle through a wider, steadier lens.
Sonically, 90059 opens the palette. The production pulls from multiple traditions—a point Jay Rock nods to on “Gumbo.” One moment offers the laid-back jazz-rap of “Money Trees Deuce”; the next swings into the hard post-Dre thump of “Necessary,” all 808 muscle and coiled energy. “Necessary” starts with an eerie chant before the drums hit like a gavel—an entrance that reads as a claim of intent. “Fly on the Wall,” with Busta Rhymes, leans into soulful boom-bap; “Wanna Ride,” with Isaiah Rashad, tilts toward Southern-soaked funk that winks at OutKast’s lineage. The title track, “90059,” threads Shaolin-style strings and an off-kilter rhythm, and Jay Rock answers with a wild, ODB-tinted hook—an unpolished, yelped melody that lands because of its nerve. Later, the Black Hippy posse cut “Vice City” staggers its flows over a woozy minimal beat, an in-house cipher about temptation and pressure. Across these pivots, the record holds its through-line. The variety serves the emotional arc rather than scattering it.
That widened sound bed gives Jay Rock new space as an MC. He shakes the “one-dimensional street soldier” tag with writing that cuts deeper and scenes built from concrete detail. On “Necessary,” the drive-by image pops: “On Forgiato rim tire, automatics spit fire, yack in the black canister—look at this bastard go… it don’t take much to aim, fingers be snatching souls.” Chrome rims, muzzle flash, and the chilling ease of harm arrive in a handful of bars. He also plays with concept cleanly. “Telegram (Going Krazy)” turns a sharp double meaning—“I see the telegram goin’ crazy, I tell the ’Gram I’m goin’ crazy”—into a split-screen of public persona and private spiral. Elsewhere he threads mental health, relationship strain, and survivor’s guilt through a hustler-philosopher lens. The delivery shifts, too: higher registers sparring with Kendrick on “Easy Bake,” a raspy bark that snaps to attention, and gravelly croons on the hooks of “Telegram” and “Money Trees Deuce.” On “90059,” he chants the zip code in a drunken sing-song that shouldn’t work but does. Lance Skiiiwalker’s shadowy presence deepens the timbral range, yet the voices blend so closely that it plays like facets of Rock himself. The net effect: a more magnetic, flexible lead who shapes the mood instead of just holding the line.
The tracklist reinforces a loose story of hunger, doubt, and resolve. The first stretch—“Necessary” into “Easy Bake”—swings with urgency, the sound of a fighter finally getting his title shot. “Gumbo” eases into a ride-out groove—lush strings, laid-back funk guitar—and Rock folds in heritage and community, true to the dish’s name. The record doesn’t coast, though. “Wanna Ride” slides into woozy Southern R&B, adding a new texture to West Coast grit. “The Ways” and “Telegram (Going Krazy)” push toward softer, melodic terrain aimed at connection and radio reach; they momentarily cool the momentum but humanize Rock’s knots around love and communication, and they set up the closing run.
The last third tightens focus. “90059” lands late as a thematic spine: haunted strings, head-rattling drums, and those unhinged zip-code chants that work as both neighborhood claim and exorcism. The verses sketch Watts nights—“bullets have a name defined by different calibers… concrete jungle, beware of different challengers”—so the stakes feel immediate. The “box” of the zip code from the album’s setup returns here, and you can hear him push against it line by line. “Vice City” follows as a grimy victory lap with the full Black Hippy roster, a reminder that Jay Rock isn’t carrying this alone. He anchors the exchange and proves—again—that his steadiness is a feature, not a bug.
The final stretch cools to reflection. “Fly on the Wall” brings a sample-warm slow burn, with Busta Rhymes turning inward and Rock speaking to legacy and lessons—observer and survivor, not spectator. In context, “Money Trees Deuce” reads like morning after the long night: aspirational, clear-eyed, and earned. A brief epilogue (“The Message”) functions like a curtain call. At eleven tracks, the record runs lean and intentional; the pacing builds weight without dead air. When it ends, the impression is firm: Jay Rock had something to say about himself, his neighborhood, and his era—and he said it.
More than half a decade later, 90059 remains a pivotal chapter for Jay Rock and for TDE. It didn’t dominate charts or conversation—debuting at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 in a packed 2015 that included To Pimp a Butterfly and Drake’s blitz—but it recalibrated how people heard Jay Rock. Within the TDE catalog, 90059 settled in as a fans-keep-close record: not the franchise centerpiece, yet prized for craft and honesty. It also showed how the gangsta tradition could evolve without losing its core truth. In its blend of G-funk thump, jazz, soul, and trap, you can hear a bridge between generations—Watts roots meeting the genre-mixing that defines modern rap. For Jay Rock personally, the album separated him from “Kendrick’s friend with the hot verse” and set the stage for Redemption (2018), which brought broader wins and a Grammy-recognized single (“King’s Dead”). 90059 laid that groundwork.
With 90059, it’s an artistic coming-of-age—proof he can carry an album on perspective and heart—and it’s a hinge point that propelled the next phase. The record still rewards return trips, offering new angles years later and capturing the moment Jay Rock turned pressure into something durable. He may not chase the spotlight, but given the mic and a clear lane, he delivers work that rings true—steady fire lighting corners most rappers gloss over.