Fetty Wap - For My Fans

Fetty Wap
For My Fans
2018
Spotify

There was a tweet from @gsheffr the other day and it read: "The year is 2014. It's Spring Break, You're on the beach with your friends. Trap Queen is playing on the aux. No one knows that bitcoin is. Obama is president. Life is good.". For anyone living through the past few years this tweet hits so close to home because those almost four years feel like a lifetime ago. I'm sure Fetty feels the same because since Trap Queen He has had a damn near impossible time breaking back into the mainstream. A slew of EPs and mixtapes have filled the gap between his last album and the eventual King Zoo slated to come out this year...or last... For My Fans (this is his third volume with the moniker) is a quaint more soulful offering than what we are usually used to from Fetty, basically him showing us his softer side. This is clear on "Love The Way" which sounds like an extremely explicit love song. This whole album feels that way, overly loving while still trying to maintain some kind of hardness that never really works. On the same song, towards the end Fetty goes on what can only be called an extended vocal run that is absolutely fucking awful. Every song feels like it is a minute to long and so overly loving it makes you want to claw your eyes out. "Trap Queen" worked because it was novel, a rapper half singing and bringing a genre to the pop masses, but now it just feels ridiculous. There are so many better versions of Fetty Wap now, Lil Uzi Vert for one, that He just seems more and more like a one hit wonder as time goes by.

"You Don't Know" is another example of a song that tries to be loving but is so blatantly sexual that it ruins any sensuality they may be going for. If you read my last Fetty Wap review you'll find that I really was rooting for him. He seemed like someone who was earnest, dedicated and actually on the vanguard of an emerging genre. I wanted Fetty to win, but with record like this it is damn near impossible to get on board. I don't mind a rapper going hard, in fact I love it, but veiling that aggression in this love sick bullshit is just terrible. It never ends on this record, you are desperate for some kind of change up some kind of different take but it never comes. Every song not only has the same theme but almost follows the exact same formula. "Text Me" is absolutely childish in its conception and delivery: "Kick it like Karate Baby/Two of us Party Baby/Top down in my Rari baby". Is this really breaking lyrical ground? Even if this is "just a mixtape" you shouldn't dilute your catalog with lyrics this bad. This record really doesn't give you much hope for the eventual arrival of King Zoo, in fact it makes you dread it.

2.0 out of 10