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A crucial member of Young Stoner Life (YSL), one of the biggest music groups in rap, Atlanta’s Lil Keed emerged in the music industry having Young Thug as his mentor for years. The rapper first blew up near the end of 2018 with “Keed Talk To ‘Em.”

Keed was one of the only members of YSL not being investigated for racketeering charges in 2022. But on May 13, 2022, Keed suddenly died of natural causes, only three days after Young Thug was arrested. Keed left behind hundreds of unreleased songs and fans who were eager to see the rapper grow even bigger.

Perfecting his craft with other members of YSL, Keed’s high pitch, squeaky trap music that resembled so much of Thug’s helped him become one of the next top artists out of Atlanta. The 2019 album, “Long Live Mexico” only pushed him further into the spotlight, with singles “Snake” and “Pull Up” generating instant success especially on TikTok, while also peaking just outside the top 25 on the Billboard 200.

Eventually starting to work with rappers outside of his style/sound like Roddy Rich, Lil Uzi Vert and Moneybagg Yo, Keed gained traction from listeners engrossed in the southern trap scene, eventually landing a spot in the 2020 XXL Freshman List.

His first posthumous piece of work “Keed Talk To ‘Em 2,” a sequel to the 2018 project that blew him up, was released on St. Patrick’s Day, and it reflects on the talent and memories that Keed left on the music industry while also expanding on his young discography.

Album overview

Keed’s sudden death came at a time of controversy surrounding YSL as the rap empire was under serious investigation. Keed had been bedridden for about four days before admittance to the hospital, where he passed away from eosinophilia, a high amount of disease-killing white blood cells that indicates parasitic infections, cancer or other health problems.

Almost a year after his death, “Keed Talk To ‘Em 2,” picks up where he left off with a 20-song tracklist, experimenting with his piping vocals and melodic trap beats that set him apart from the pack of Atlanta’s budding artists.

The cover art displays Keed’s face arising out of a rose, as petals fly off in the distance behind the blue sky background. Rocking all of his signature chains, fans still get to see Keed’s image that appears on all of his previous albums.

Offset, Big Sean, Young Thug and many other stars help garner interest towards the project, putting together a solid piece to help remember the household name’s talent.

Standout tracks

Many members of YSL are scattered across the album, with the group being credited as a whole on numerous tracks, even the ones that just include Keed.

Skipping past the first three songs, tracks 4-6 include strong performances from Lil Keed and his respective features. “SRT” highlights the popular combination of him and Lil Gotit.

Gotit uses a lot of the same vocal skills as Keed, a big reason why “SRT” and many past collaborations between the southern artists have worked so well. Despite the repetitive chorus consisting of “pick it up and watch the SRT skate,” both rappers deliver strong verses on the topics of Hellcats and Rolls Royce Cullinans, and name drop high-end brands like Gucci, Cartier and Chrome Hearts.

“Hottest” was originally supposed to include Gunna, but following controversy on whether or not he snitched on members of YSL to be released from prison, his appearance was replaced with Big Sean, who rips off a well-accomplished feature.

Sean goes in on pop culture references like “spider, spider, spider all around me, going Miles Morales,” referencing the film “Spiderman: Into The Spider-Verse” and “odds was against us, I bring it back home, going Patrick Mahomes,” as an homage to the Kansas City Chiefs winning the Super Bowl.

Keed raps “Me and Spider and Gunna some big drippers,” yet Gunna’s name is blurred out, an interesting move given that he was supposed to be on this track. Spider refers to Young Thug, who often goes by that amongst his many other nicknames.

“How Many,” has Keed and Offset go bar-for-bar in an upbeat, menacing song where they go over situations and “how many” times they repeated the chorus.

Offset, like many of the other features on this album, produces a strong performance, but this overabundance in appearances does get worrisome towards this part of the project, with features carrying many tracks. Across these three songs, the features have a heavy influence on if certain songs would be as good or better if they were solo performances from Keed.

Transitioning to the solo “Long Way To Go,” Keed focuses on how his career is just getting started and that he’s “got a long way to go, but I’m closer than ever.” The Atlanta rapper showcases how far he has come since the commencement of his time in the music industry, while also utilizing more of his lyricism and fast-paced delivery.

Seeing his potential in a song where he discusses how his life is starting to change for the better and receiving the money and fame he grinded for is tough to listen to given his eventual health conditions and death.

This potential is also shown in the final song of “Keed Talk To ‘Em 2” titled “Thank You Lord,” including gospel-esque lyrics from Fridayy, a speech from Keed before he passed about the album and messages from his daughter.

Between the speech and voice recordings from his daughter, it’s an emotional but heartwarming listen, displaying how much he meant to rap, his fans and most importantly his family.

“Now, I’m thankful, I’m grateful for everything that come, Slatt,” is how Keed concludes his speech, focusing on the classic motto “Slime Love All The Time.”

Published on March 21, 2023 at 11:45 pm