Woptober II

Gucci Mane announced his 15th studio album on Instagram a few weeks ahead of its release, and almost as quickly, fans had an idea of how the project would sound. “Album so street! Yall ain’t ready,” reads one of the post’s earliest comments, left by Gucci’s wife, Keyshia Ka’oir. Chalk the enthusiasm up to being a supportive partner, but Ka’oir is no liar. Woptober II plays like a throwback to the first run of Gucci’s most celebrated mixtape work, recalling storied projects like Bird Flu, EA SportsCenter, and his multivolume Wilt Chamberlain series.

Throughout it, Gucci is very much the freewheeling MC whose masterful balance of horrifying threats and impassioned flexing won him his first tier of fans underground. And he’s rapping like he doesn’t care who hears what he has to say. “This dope will make you do the Kanye,” he says on “Tootsies.”

Packed with voices of the moment like Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby, Woptober II also features some of the best MCs Atlanta street rap has to offer, including Quavo and Takeoff of Migos, Lil Baby, Peewee Longway, and Gucci’s onetime right hand, OJ da Juiceman. In fact, the biggest difference between this album and that formerly bygone era of Gucci is how much more believable he is when making claims like the one on the opening track—that he is “Richer Than Errybody.”