Gucci Mane - El Gato: The Human Glacier (2017)

El Gato: The Human Glacier is a throwback to one of Gucci’s most beloved and productive eras, the “Guccimania” period of 2008–'09. The raps are brash (see “Dickriders” for a chorus that finds Gucci at his grizzliest) and habitually verbose, even when he stretches his intonation, like on “TYT”. The production, courtesy of Southside alone, is spacious enough for Gucci to maximise syllables yet thunderous enough to rattle car speakers—and, inevitably, draw attention at traffic lights. El Gato is less a return to form (2017 alone proved he hasn’t lost a step) than Gucci trying on an older style that so few of his contemporaries would have had the faculty to emulate.