G Herbo: Lil Herb
I haven’t been keeping up with the rap game for a while. I just can’t understand the new mumble raps. I have been listening to G Herbo’s Lil Herb. I hadn’t heard of this guy before, but I could feel that he rhymed from his fucking heart.
Right off the opening track, “Every Night,” he wastes no time setting up his story: “Lay awake in bed, thinkin’ all night / Sometimes in my feelings, I was livin’ a hard life.” Over the rock guitar riff and pounding bass, he warns, “Pray to God that nobody brings me harm or don’t even start a fight / I control the crowd with my left arm, you know I’m armed, right.”
Not only does he sound so damn hungry on “Reason,” he also proves that he’s a vivid storyteller: “Bullets tap they head / I was fightin’ a fed case, but I did not go fed / Pay my lawyer bread, then went and tuck my kids in bed.” He rhymes on, “I’m still havin’ nightmares, I wake up seein’ red / Think back, if it weren’t for rap, where would I be instead? / Probably, probably jail, probably, probably dead, probably.”
“Blitz” kicks off with a gun-loading sound then raining bullets throughout the beat as Herb rips through striking details full of actions: “Blitzin’ with his fire, he can’t even hit back, watch his shit splat / Squeeze until it click-clack, fuck the talkin’, we don’t chit-chat / Bring it to your front door like it’s gift wrap / Fuckin” with my bro, we caught a dime at the kickback.” Likewise “Radar” is another action-packed storytelling verse, in which Herb sets off the scene: “You ever lived through a nightmare? / Looked death in the face, he might stare / Somebody try and kill you right there.”
At first, I assumed Herb is a new artist with an ole soul, but in “Win Again,” he reveals, “I’m grateful for my fans, I started rapping in 2010 / Got turnt, I went up ten, I’m tryin’ to run up ten again / I grew up gangsta, wanna be a businessman like 50 Cent / Got labels askin’ about my masters ’cause I got fifty percent.” He has been in the game for 15 years; therefore, he still has that old-school goodness in him. Lil Herb is a banging album filled with virtuosic flow and compelling storytelling.