2 Chainz is rap’s court jester of the moment, and he's requested by rappers far and wide to deliver on that talent: precise bars, quotable lyrics (“Money tall like Jordan”), and his trademark adlibs wrapped in his crude but charming persona. In his solo work, nearly every line is a result of his desire to get a laugh, and FreeBase, his recently released free EP, allows 2 Chainz to stay in character without overstretching his shtick.
FreeBase remains as sonically adventurous as 2 Chainz’s previous two albums. Mike Will Made It’s lumbering stomp on “Wuda Cuda Shuda” and Young Chop’s eerie speedboat-chase music on “They Know” demonstrate why they have been go to producers of the last few years. The tape's padded out with samples from Richard Pryor and the absurdist comedy Step Brothers, providing a framework that makes the EP more than a pack of leftover tracks from an old recording session.
On repeated listens, 2 Chainz’s punchline-focused style turns initial smirks into outright laughter. His sense of humor is most potent when riffing on familiar rap tropes, but it can be hard to stomach when he turns to pure misogyny on tracks like “Flexin on My Baby Mama”. Regardless, FreeBase has its genuinely funny moments, such as when 2 Chainz, who has worked with everyone from Kanye West to Lil Boosie, states “I’ve done a song with everybody from Jermaine Dupri down to Papoose,” which is at the least an interesting selection of artists to namedrop.
2 Chainz can appear on a song with any rapper or pop star, but he also wants to throw his weight around in the area of modern rap that A$AP Rocky namechecks on “Crib in My Closet”: fashion. "Crib in My Closet" sounds like a 2000-era Big Tymers boastful track where 2 Chainz, A$AP Rocky, and Rick Ross fight for the “Best Dressed” crown, with Rocky delivering the knockout punch by name-dropping the Met Ball and Anna Wintour. It should be said, though, that 2 Chainz's obsession with fashion also provides the best intentionally ironic line, as he yells “I don’t respect my elders,” willfully ignoring that, in terms of age, he's the oldest rapper to appear on the EP. 2 Chainz been rapping for over a decade, but now his music sounds like he’s just entertaining himself during late night recording sessions and (correctly) assuming his audience is along for the ride.
