By Horatio Glover ’26
The newest album Welcome 2 ColleGrove by 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne has come out, and unfortunately, it doesn’t know what it wants to be. It doesn’t live up to or come close to surpassing its older brother. Welcome 2 Collegrove is the younger brother of 2 Chainz’s ColleGrove album which came out in 2016. ColleGrove was supposed to be a collaboration album with Lil Wayne, however, due to record label problems and other legal issues, it was just a whole bunch of features of 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne even though 2 Chainz was the credited artist.
When ColleGrove came out, it didn’t really blow up; its reviews were either in the middle, or lower. Metacritic gave it 66/100; XXL gave it 3/5; HipHopDX gave it a 3.8/5; Rolling Stone gave it a 3/5, and other review sites were similar. ColleGrove has 12 songs with nine of them lasting four minutes or more. The whole album will run you about 48 minutes. There is also a deluxe edition of the album with one more song called ‘’Watch out,’’ which is 4 minutes and 30 seconds.
Before releasing ColleGrove both artists had released an album recently, but neither performed well. 2 Chainz’s latest was Dope Don’t Sell Itself, which came out in 2022 and was given pretty bad reviews ranging from 3 stars to 50 out of 100. For Lil Wayne, it doesn’t get any better. His latest album, which came out 2 months before Welcome 2 ColleGrove was called Tha Fix Before Tha VI. That album’s reviews were given even worse reviews than 2 Chainz’s, receiving 2 out of 5 stars. With both artists not starting off hot, they struggled to bring it back with Welcome 2 ColleGrove .
Welcome 2 ColleGrove was released on November 17, 2023, through Def Jam Records. It has 21 songs and five scenes, which are little skits in between the songs. The songs run long; the album in whole will run you about an hour of your time. Unlike its older brother, which has zero features, ColleGrove 2 has seven features. These features include 21 Savage, Usher, Fabolous, Benny the Butcher, Vory, Rick Ross, and Marsha Ambrosius.
Welcome 2 ColleGrove starts off strong with scene one and 50 Cent serving as narrator. He starts off by telling a story about two guys that eventually became brothers: Tune and Slim. He goes on about how they started selling drugs and never went back. From this, you’ll think the album will have a dark, almost storytelling vibe like Meek Mill and his Tony Story or even something similar to Kendrick Lamar. However, it doesn’t, and the first song “G6” doesn’t help either.
“G6” starts off with Lil Wayne and a funny instrumental-type beat, which is thrown off from the serious tone in which the album starts. Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz both go on to a good performance throughout the song, however, it doesn’t really flow together. Both rappers go on different beats, and it feels like they go on with their own freestyle, not really matching with anything the other is doing.
“Big Diamonds,” on the other hand, starts off with a good beat but then falls off horribly with goofy lyrics. Then Lil Wayne hops in with a robotic voice and starts to go even more downhill from there. The album can be defined by both initial songs: they don’t flow well with each other and each rapper has their own freestyle like they’re on a different song all together. Then, it struggles with its identity on what it wants to do: tell a cold hearted story with 50 Cent, or just be another mediocre rap album. They try to play both, and the mixture fails horribly. You have the scene with a serious tone, then the songs go off in a funny, goofy tone, and it throws you a curve ball and knocks you off.
“Millions From Now” starts off great with 2 Chainz and follows it all the way through to its halfway point with Lil Wayne. The flow goes great at first but starts to fall off with Lil Wayne mumbling words and speaking too fast. In contrast, the next track, “Crazy Thick,” is overall a good song. I had no complaints listening to it the first time, and listening to it again makes me think that Lil Wayne redeems himself from his mumbling. It shows how he is much better at slow lyrics than a speedy Slim Shady style.
The album then features Usher, with the song “Transparency” which is my favorite out of all the 16 songs. The slow beat and Usher’s old rap just flows well with the tone. Both Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz perform well in this, too, with their flow on beat with one another. The album starts to improves with “Oprah & Geal” with Benny The Butcher having the best word play throughout the whole album.
Then it dies again with Shame and Bars and 2 Chainz being the main culprit: his lyrics continue to be questionable like when he says, ‘’Touchin’ the sky, I could skateboard in the cloud, put ’em on some much loud that they won’t make sound,’’ or even, ‘’Potato head, turn ’em into mashed potatoes.’’
Towards the end, “Crown Snatchers” is a good song. The beat and flow match with both of the rappers and they don’t go off into their own freestyle like in the beginning of the album. Then, “Can’t Believe You” with Rick Ross is alright; it sounds like a Rick Ross song more than anything, though. The lyrics are nothing to write home about… it was just a mediocre song.
Finally, the last song “Moon Light” falls flat on its face for a closing song that’s supposed to end the album. It’s another slow verb song, but it just doesn’t match with Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz. They don’t come off with a R&B style they are more known for: the loud, explosive rap style, so the song doesn’t really do anything spectacular at all.
Overall, I give the album a 3/5: it has it moments with a few notable songs, however, it struggles with its identity. With its hard, cold vibe in the scenes to goofy, funny lyrics to its slow and R&B vibes at the end, it struggles with what it wants to be and throws you off and makes it hard to listen to.
The Raider Press 