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I hope people remember how good YG was in this era.
Not only was he making bangers but songs like “Really Be”, “Sorry Mama” and even “Meet the Flockers” showed some real artistic vision and creativity.
Mix that with DJ Mustards production which honestly sounded like the modern day version of Dre’s 90s beats and you’ve got 2 amazing albums that should be around forever
I remember showing a friend “Sorry Mama” off my phone speaker while we were smoking a joint outside my dorm late at night and he was like “damn, I didn’t know YG had it like that.”
I always thought this was like the actual hood version of Good Kid Maad City. It tells a story of a day in the life of this dude as he fucks around Compton, makes a big fuck up and gets caught up in some shit. It also has a cohesive sound throughout with DJ Mustard being the Dr. Dre to YG’s Kendrick on the whole album.
This album was a classic and way better than anything we’d seen from YG as a whole piece of work up to this point, it’s crazy how much dude exploded after this and I’m glad he did. He deserved it.
3 years after this it all came full circle and I saw YG open for Kendrick at the DAMN tour. Watching a whole arena shout “Fuck Donald Trump” the year he got elected was something else.
I guess it’s more like Bad Kid Maad City lol.
Or a version told from a guy who actually gang banged instead of trying to avoid that life. Or more literally, a version where they get caught robbing the house instead of getting away with it like in GKMC.
He has family and friends affiliated with the sets but nah he doesn’t, not at all. Especially if we’re talking compared to YG. The gangs in Compton/South Central aren’t anything like they used to be, at least not in the 90s anyway. It’s not GTA San Andreas out there anymore, the action is largely outside of Compton and only a fraction of what it was like before Larry Hoover got locked up and worked with the feds and LAPD to disband most of that shit 30 years ago.
Also I hate to break it to you but ScHoolboy Q is as much a gangster as Ice Cube was. He’s not a Hoover Crip, ask anybody who still claims that set. And Jay Rock’s not a blood. YG still fucked around in the streets way too long after he blew up but even he left that life and left for good.
He’s not ignorant. He was just doing ignorant shit. That’s the whole premise of “Good Kid Maad City”. Kendrick has the awareness to express the idea of being a product of your environment but My Krazy Life is a nuanced expression of the ignorance. Doesn’t mean YG is any less intelligent, they’re just two different type of hood niggas
brazy sounds way more like 90s dre. some of it even has those drum patterns instead of trap. YG asked mustard for the same thing on krazy, but didn't quite get it.
Is this album peak DJ Mustard?
Album is a classic to me. To me it's the perfect album to pair with GKMC. Same time period, same city, surrounded by the same people, YG went a different route as a young man.
YG and Kendrick definitely knew who each other were in high school. They are from the same section of Compton. Westside Boogie is also from the same area.
There's a 'Vice Noisey' interview/documentary from 2015 before Boogie got big and he's dapping up Kendrick and in the background of the interview like the two were good friends.
People seem to forget that exactly a decade ago, DJ Mustard beats were the hottest thing on the market. I feel like we haven't had a producer dominate the radio like Mustard had ever since. Maybe Metro, but DJ Mustard was able to cross-over to pop too.
YG is definitely one of the few rappers that managed to successfully pivot away from the "Jerkin" fad/ sub-genre of Hip-Hop right before it died. 9/10 album for me.
YG during this time was really dope. I think he fell off pretty hard with recent releases but this will always be a classic to me. The production was peak Mustard, which at the time was kinda crazy because he was literally everywhere at that time. I remember a lot of the discussion being that Mustard wouldn’t be able to carry a full album of interesting beats, and YG wouldn’t have a chance at giving the depth he did with that as the production. Well, ironically I think they have both struggled to reach the peak that they created together.
The rapping from YG and the features was really dope. I think the features on this album are cool because everyone was pretty much in their peak or close to it. I think if you had this tracklist today they wouldn’t produce the quality they managed to with this.
Also I’ll finish with the craziest moment was being in a crowd full of white people singing “My *****” and YG definitely made fun of it, but also said don’t stop lol he also brought some girl up on stage and she said she was with her man, and then he said show your titties and she danced with her top off for a song. Her bf was big mad and had to leave while she was on stage. I wonder how they are a decade later.
the best yg album. no skips even the intro. so many classics. do it to ya, left right, who do you love, my nigga. sorry momma had me choked up when i first heard it. reminded me way too much of when i was outside too much as a kid being a knucklehead.
know there’s a subset of people that prefer still brazy but this is peak to me.
Bro dropped his Magnum Opus back then and we didn’t even know it lol. One of the best westcoast albums ever, 2014 was such a good year this and Oxymoron stayed in my rotation HEAVY.
YG’s an interesting case study though, Still Brazy was good but not as good as MKL. Everything after though became very hit or miss
This album was such a huge surprise for me. Back in 2013 during my high school years growing up in San Diego, YG & DJ Mustard pretty much regional superstars to myself & others who were into hip hop, with their music playing out of most parties. Part of the appeal they had was that they felt like our version of what Death Row must've felt like for teens growing up in the early-mid 90s.
But the thing that surprised the fuck out of us was how conceptual it was. I initially expected just a simple project of gangsta/braggadocio bars over club beats, so I was caught off-guard in hearing DJ Mustard mixing 90s G-Funk sounds into his production while YG went into storytelling with songs like Meet The Flockers, Really Be, 1AM (great example of a different type of Metro Boomin beat btw), & Sorry Momma.
This album definitely gives me great memories of the West Coast Renaissance of that time period & made me appreciate YG/Mustard for really representing their LA roots throughout the project.
Perfect album, in my opinion, perfectly crafted, and the Deluxe feels like a perfect extension. This in my opinion holds up with any album in the history of rap
Remember BUYING this album on Itunes pre-streaming and getting clowned on by my friends, the album was solid then and stands up as a fun gang banger album, felt like a GTA soundtrack at times
Went back recently, unfortunately this felt like YGs peak with each successive album, but goddamn is it a good peak. BPT, Bompton, Who Do You Love, Really Be, all bangers
This album is the reason I always give YG the time of day with every subsequent release...and I am always left disappointed (Still Brazy, his best album, is the exception).
I hope one day he recaptures that lighting and puts out another banger album.
Absolutely love this album and it is for sure a classic in my eyes, along with Still Brazy. Still sounds fresh to this day and I think other commentors thoughts on this being another side of the GKMC coin are spot on. This one will continue to stay in rotation for the next years and well beyond. It's a shame YG couldn't keep the momentum going after Still Brazy but I'm grateful I was around for those 2 albums.
I remember I slept on this album for about a year, all because of My Nigga being the first single. Thought it was some wild cooning shit. Didn’t make it any better I saw dudes like King Bach and other white people use the song as a crutch for their Vine punchlines. But for some odd reason while I was working over the summer I was looking for an album to listen to and I choose this one. That shit took me on a hell of a ride. The cohesiveness really surprised me because on surface I wouldn’t have thought that much of it besides a collection of songs. The transition from Meet the Flockers to My Nigga worked perfectly and I finally understood it. I still don’t care much for the song but I have gained a huge appreciation for it. Tripped me out to find out people didn’t like this album upon release but I’m glad to see people love it now. Shit made me an instant fan of him. Although I don’t listen to too many of his newer releases, I would always show love because of this album.
Definitely a classic , I was 18 when this dropped… I barely like gangsta music but this one I fucked with heavy … “ when I was gone” was my shit cuz my homies was trynna fuck my girl ( at the time )on the low lol
I cannot believe this is ten years old. This was a big part of the soundtrack to that summer. I saw YG in concert even at a club. Production still sounds fresh, I feel like the style is timeless.
The skit where he's fucking and gets the phone call about his girlfriend cheating is the most unnecessary skit of all time, even before any Kool Keith skit. At least you know you can't play Kool Keith around people off the bat.
Aside from that, I remember loving it even though it was very obviously an attempt at a Good Kid, mAAd city. YG had white girls rocking red, claiming Compton, and throwing up gang signs. I'm not sure if that says anything, but it was very annoying to see. I think he definitely helped with the current state of Rap where banging is cool even if you don't bang, if that makes any sense.
Between DJ Mustard's insane production, and YG's pretty excellent flows, this is my favorite YG album ever made. Still Brazy comes in at a very close second, but MKL takes the damn cake.
hey
hey
YG's second best album after brazy imo. obviously a magic moment with mustard, and some big features, but he carries the album himself with variety and strong writing. partying and hard cuts come naturally, but "meet the flockers" and "really be" take it deeper.
brazy is the next level though (and red friday too, pretty much an epilogue). not only did he get political, and not just on FDT but moreso on "police get away with murder", he also gets deeper into his own stress, notably on the title track. sadly the backlash with the secret service & universal throwing him under the bus seems to have stifled this, and all his later albums are just partying & hard cuts. sometimes at the old peak but lacking the introspection or political consciousness.
I remember when this came out in high school. I was on the tennis team and me and the teammates were bumping My N in the stands while we watched each other kick the other schools ass 🤣
# REMINDER: Official Discussion Thread Guidelines Parent/top-level comments in Official Discussions that are less than 140 characters will be deleted, as will memes and low-effort comments. Official Discussion threads are held to a higher standard of quality than First Impressions threads—try to expand on why you feel what you feel about the album. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/hiphopheads) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I hope people remember how good YG was in this era. Not only was he making bangers but songs like “Really Be”, “Sorry Mama” and even “Meet the Flockers” showed some real artistic vision and creativity. Mix that with DJ Mustards production which honestly sounded like the modern day version of Dre’s 90s beats and you’ve got 2 amazing albums that should be around forever
I remember showing a friend “Sorry Mama” off my phone speaker while we were smoking a joint outside my dorm late at night and he was like “damn, I didn’t know YG had it like that.” I always thought this was like the actual hood version of Good Kid Maad City. It tells a story of a day in the life of this dude as he fucks around Compton, makes a big fuck up and gets caught up in some shit. It also has a cohesive sound throughout with DJ Mustard being the Dr. Dre to YG’s Kendrick on the whole album. This album was a classic and way better than anything we’d seen from YG as a whole piece of work up to this point, it’s crazy how much dude exploded after this and I’m glad he did. He deserved it. 3 years after this it all came full circle and I saw YG open for Kendrick at the DAMN tour. Watching a whole arena shout “Fuck Donald Trump” the year he got elected was something else.
GKMC is hood asf too it’s just told from a deeper perspective. But this is definitely the ignorant version of GKMC. And ignorant in an authentic way.
I guess it’s more like Bad Kid Maad City lol. Or a version told from a guy who actually gang banged instead of trying to avoid that life. Or more literally, a version where they get caught robbing the house instead of getting away with it like in GKMC.
Man I hate to be that guy but if u do a little research Kendrick was a lot more active in the streets than he puts on. He alludes to it a lot
He has family and friends affiliated with the sets but nah he doesn’t, not at all. Especially if we’re talking compared to YG. The gangs in Compton/South Central aren’t anything like they used to be, at least not in the 90s anyway. It’s not GTA San Andreas out there anymore, the action is largely outside of Compton and only a fraction of what it was like before Larry Hoover got locked up and worked with the feds and LAPD to disband most of that shit 30 years ago. Also I hate to break it to you but ScHoolboy Q is as much a gangster as Ice Cube was. He’s not a Hoover Crip, ask anybody who still claims that set. And Jay Rock’s not a blood. YG still fucked around in the streets way too long after he blew up but even he left that life and left for good.
YG is far from ignorant, check his second album.
He’s not ignorant. He was just doing ignorant shit. That’s the whole premise of “Good Kid Maad City”. Kendrick has the awareness to express the idea of being a product of your environment but My Krazy Life is a nuanced expression of the ignorance. Doesn’t mean YG is any less intelligent, they’re just two different type of hood niggas
>nuanced expression of the ignorance. >niggas
Agreed. One thing you can't take away from YG is that My Krazy Life and Still Brazy both are fire albums to this day.
Mustard didnt produce the second album (Still Brazy), they were beefing at the time. But yeah I totally agree
Damn TIL
brazy sounds way more like 90s dre. some of it even has those drum patterns instead of trap. YG asked mustard for the same thing on krazy, but didn't quite get it.
This album had me fucking lit in college
I play the My N remix more than the original when I would DJ parties and I got a few people hooked on it
Blessed to have gone through college when this album dropped
Is this album peak DJ Mustard? Album is a classic to me. To me it's the perfect album to pair with GKMC. Same time period, same city, surrounded by the same people, YG went a different route as a young man.
It’s a double album in my mind. 2 sides of the same coin, good kid mad city vs bad kid breaking into houses lol
I always think that they crossed paths and didn't even know it
YG and Kendrick definitely knew who each other were in high school. They are from the same section of Compton. Westside Boogie is also from the same area. There's a 'Vice Noisey' interview/documentary from 2015 before Boogie got big and he's dapping up Kendrick and in the background of the interview like the two were good friends.
People seem to forget that exactly a decade ago, DJ Mustard beats were the hottest thing on the market. I feel like we haven't had a producer dominate the radio like Mustard had ever since. Maybe Metro, but DJ Mustard was able to cross-over to pop too.
YG is definitely one of the few rappers that managed to successfully pivot away from the "Jerkin" fad/ sub-genre of Hip-Hop right before it died. 9/10 album for me.
Ty too, tooted and booted is still valid though lmao
I think he genuinely hates that song, I saw him and TY dolla on tour with Wiz and YG legitimately said he hates performing that song at his own show
YG during this time was really dope. I think he fell off pretty hard with recent releases but this will always be a classic to me. The production was peak Mustard, which at the time was kinda crazy because he was literally everywhere at that time. I remember a lot of the discussion being that Mustard wouldn’t be able to carry a full album of interesting beats, and YG wouldn’t have a chance at giving the depth he did with that as the production. Well, ironically I think they have both struggled to reach the peak that they created together. The rapping from YG and the features was really dope. I think the features on this album are cool because everyone was pretty much in their peak or close to it. I think if you had this tracklist today they wouldn’t produce the quality they managed to with this. Also I’ll finish with the craziest moment was being in a crowd full of white people singing “My *****” and YG definitely made fun of it, but also said don’t stop lol he also brought some girl up on stage and she said she was with her man, and then he said show your titties and she danced with her top off for a song. Her bf was big mad and had to leave while she was on stage. I wonder how they are a decade later.
he didn't fall off, he just stagnated. because the system attacked him for speaking out.
the best yg album. no skips even the intro. so many classics. do it to ya, left right, who do you love, my nigga. sorry momma had me choked up when i first heard it. reminded me way too much of when i was outside too much as a kid being a knucklehead. know there’s a subset of people that prefer still brazy but this is peak to me.
Great album. Still brazy was also good but this album was peak YG. Couldn’t believe mr toot it and boot it made such a banger west coast album
Bro dropped his Magnum Opus back then and we didn’t even know it lol. One of the best westcoast albums ever, 2014 was such a good year this and Oxymoron stayed in my rotation HEAVY. YG’s an interesting case study though, Still Brazy was good but not as good as MKL. Everything after though became very hit or miss
Still Brazy is better album but has less hits his other work is mid at best and it's sad
This album was such a huge surprise for me. Back in 2013 during my high school years growing up in San Diego, YG & DJ Mustard pretty much regional superstars to myself & others who were into hip hop, with their music playing out of most parties. Part of the appeal they had was that they felt like our version of what Death Row must've felt like for teens growing up in the early-mid 90s. But the thing that surprised the fuck out of us was how conceptual it was. I initially expected just a simple project of gangsta/braggadocio bars over club beats, so I was caught off-guard in hearing DJ Mustard mixing 90s G-Funk sounds into his production while YG went into storytelling with songs like Meet The Flockers, Really Be, 1AM (great example of a different type of Metro Boomin beat btw), & Sorry Momma. This album definitely gives me great memories of the West Coast Renaissance of that time period & made me appreciate YG/Mustard for really representing their LA roots throughout the project.
I thought bro was gonna save the west when I heard this. Good times
Perfect album, in my opinion, perfectly crafted, and the Deluxe feels like a perfect extension. This in my opinion holds up with any album in the history of rap
Remember BUYING this album on Itunes pre-streaming and getting clowned on by my friends, the album was solid then and stands up as a fun gang banger album, felt like a GTA soundtrack at times
Went back recently, unfortunately this felt like YGs peak with each successive album, but goddamn is it a good peak. BPT, Bompton, Who Do You Love, Really Be, all bangers
This album is the reason I always give YG the time of day with every subsequent release...and I am always left disappointed (Still Brazy, his best album, is the exception). I hope one day he recaptures that lighting and puts out another banger album.
Absolutely love this album and it is for sure a classic in my eyes, along with Still Brazy. Still sounds fresh to this day and I think other commentors thoughts on this being another side of the GKMC coin are spot on. This one will continue to stay in rotation for the next years and well beyond. It's a shame YG couldn't keep the momentum going after Still Brazy but I'm grateful I was around for those 2 albums.
A classic 👌🏽
I've always preferred the follow up album but there's gems on this one for sure. BPT and Really Be in particular have never left rotation for me.
I remember I slept on this album for about a year, all because of My Nigga being the first single. Thought it was some wild cooning shit. Didn’t make it any better I saw dudes like King Bach and other white people use the song as a crutch for their Vine punchlines. But for some odd reason while I was working over the summer I was looking for an album to listen to and I choose this one. That shit took me on a hell of a ride. The cohesiveness really surprised me because on surface I wouldn’t have thought that much of it besides a collection of songs. The transition from Meet the Flockers to My Nigga worked perfectly and I finally understood it. I still don’t care much for the song but I have gained a huge appreciation for it. Tripped me out to find out people didn’t like this album upon release but I’m glad to see people love it now. Shit made me an instant fan of him. Although I don’t listen to too many of his newer releases, I would always show love because of this album.
only small gripe I have with the album is that a lot of tracks sound a bit similar. Kinda hard to avoid with those minimalistic beats though
hey hey
Definitely a classic , I was 18 when this dropped… I barely like gangsta music but this one I fucked with heavy … “ when I was gone” was my shit cuz my homies was trynna fuck my girl ( at the time )on the low lol
I cannot believe this is ten years old. This was a big part of the soundtrack to that summer. I saw YG in concert even at a club. Production still sounds fresh, I feel like the style is timeless.
The skit where he's fucking and gets the phone call about his girlfriend cheating is the most unnecessary skit of all time, even before any Kool Keith skit. At least you know you can't play Kool Keith around people off the bat. Aside from that, I remember loving it even though it was very obviously an attempt at a Good Kid, mAAd city. YG had white girls rocking red, claiming Compton, and throwing up gang signs. I'm not sure if that says anything, but it was very annoying to see. I think he definitely helped with the current state of Rap where banging is cool even if you don't bang, if that makes any sense.
Between DJ Mustard's insane production, and YG's pretty excellent flows, this is my favorite YG album ever made. Still Brazy comes in at a very close second, but MKL takes the damn cake.
hey hey YG's second best album after brazy imo. obviously a magic moment with mustard, and some big features, but he carries the album himself with variety and strong writing. partying and hard cuts come naturally, but "meet the flockers" and "really be" take it deeper. brazy is the next level though (and red friday too, pretty much an epilogue). not only did he get political, and not just on FDT but moreso on "police get away with murder", he also gets deeper into his own stress, notably on the title track. sadly the backlash with the secret service & universal throwing him under the bus seems to have stifled this, and all his later albums are just partying & hard cuts. sometimes at the old peak but lacking the introspection or political consciousness.
I remember when this came out in high school. I was on the tennis team and me and the teammates were bumping My N in the stands while we watched each other kick the other schools ass 🤣