EARTHGANG’s Ghetto Gods is Perfect For All Types of Rap Fans
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Hip-hop’s favorite modern duo group just dropped their newest album. While loosely defined alliances like Gunna x Lil Baby, Drake x Future, and Metro Boomin x 21 Savage have made up the rap scene for the last 5-10 years, EARTHGANG has been doing things “old fashioned”. Ghetto Gods, is the Atlanta duo’s sixth album together, and acts as a sort of self-aware victory lap for the pair.
Composed of Olu aka Johnny Venus and WowGr8 aka Docturdot, the group originally met while in high school back in 2008. The two quickly began freestyling and sharing music with each other, before releasing an EP together in 2010. The group has risen to notoriety for their versatile and unique sound, blending elements of Atlanta trap with jazz, funk, soul, reggae, and even psychedelic sounds. EARTHGANG signed to J. Cole’s Dreamville Records in 2017 and has grown in large part due to their features on tracks like Sacrifices by Dreamville, and their own hit Proud of U feat. Young Thug.
The duo’s newest album, Ghetto Gods, is both a celebration of how far they’ve come, as well as an acknowledgment of the obstacles and systematic challenges that they and many others face. The album is full of lyrics and references that show just how improbable their journey to success has been.
In the appropriately named title track Ghetto Gods, Johnny Venus raps “I'm from the ghetto, baby, seen bodies in the street 'fore I could tweet, I came from nothin', I turned a mustard seed into a million, end of discussion”. Here the rapper acknowledges the violence that he was exposed to as a child while also shamelessly flexing the success he has now.
EARTHGANG not only chronicles their own journey but attempts to tell the story of many of Atlanta’s rappers and artists who have come up in the city. Throughout the album, in songs like WATERBOYZ feat. J.Cole and JID, the pair address how it’s difficult to navigate their fame and influence while also staying connected to the streets they came from.
Ghetto Gods is decidedly more rap and trap heavy than the group’s last album Mirrorland, and while the album may lack some of the innovation and creativity that EARTHGANG fans have grown accustomed to, it presents elements that the rap game is in desperate need of authenticity and nuance.
In a time when rap is often seen as either too “preachy and conscious” or too “meaningless and vulgar”, EARTHGANG uses Ghetto Gods to celebrate and reflect on both their lavish success as well as their love for the place that made them. They expertly blend the braggadocious and flex-heavy style of modern trap with their own artistic and lyric conscious style, creating a truly EARTHGANG experience.