Larry June & Cardo Keep It Laidback & Chill On 'The Night Shift'

Chances are, someone in your life is a Larry June fan.

He’s not a Billboard commanding artist, but has comfortably found a niche as a laid-back health-conscious stoner, get-money-and-better-yourself type rapper that was once filled by Curren$y and then Dom Kennedy. Each new June track conjures images of that dude you follow on Instagram who won’t shut up about how much water he drinks, or that coworker who only buys frozen meals from Trader Joe’s, or your stoner friend who substituted THC concentrates in place of blunts because “they’re bad for you.”.

June makes music for rap fans who believe they’re on a higher spiritual level, and his formula works. His new album with producer Cardo Got Wings, The Night Shift, follows this formula; sometimes, consistency is king.

Larry June is not the first braggadocious rapper and surely won’t be the last, but his boasts are packaged in a unique way that other rappers rarely can pull off. If rappers like Payroll Giovanni and Babyface Ray make you want to go out and get money by way of embarrassment and shame, June makes lux living sound so appealing you suddenly get the itch to send a few extra job applications out. He rarely calls others broke and doesn’t lament his opponents; through penthouse imagery, organic smoothies, beautiful women, and biking the hills of San Francisco on a sunny afternoon, June effortlessly pulls you into his world. His calls of staying fit and drinking the “green juice” sound seducing, like he’s trying to indoctrinate you into a really healthy cult.

It’s a carefully cultivated image he’s developed over his last decade-plus in the rap industry. June’s always been talented, but if you look beyond the film grain album art of old school cars, his first two Cali Grown projects in the early 2010s sound like they were made by a different person. By 2015, he began to develop his standalone ethos as rap’s resident life coach with his single “Came A Long Way.”

As his identity began to materialize, June went on a run in 2019, releasing seven full-length projects and a handful of EPs, every one of them consistent and chock full of his iconic ad libs (like “Good job, Larry!” and “God damn!”, for example.) The middling rapper searching for his sound finally found something signature, batting a high average.

On The Night Shift, June’s second album this year with a legendary producer (in April, he released The Great Escape with The Alchemist), he adds just enough new wrinkles to keep his sound interesting.

June still raps about women, biking, and smoothies (even interpolating the opening two bars from his own 2019 song “Tracy, CA” on “Stickin’ and Movin’”), but with some extra monetary flourishes. If you don’t believe his tried-and-true formula of rapp works, The Night Shift is a testament to the contrary; since 2019, the old school Beamers have become McLarens, the limos have morphed into private jets, and the Kenzo sweaters have switched into Celine pants.

A good chunk of the album’s uniqueness is found in the production from Cardo Got Wings, who, much like June himself, is known for sticking to his own proven formula of G-Funk inspired basslines, sober drums and piercing snares — appeals to the cool breeze of the Pacific Coast HIghway.

On The Night Shift, though, while Cardo’s beats still ring true to his singular style, they take the form of deeper and darker grooves. His signature bounce gives way to more textured melodies and the atmospheric quality of a smoked-out jazz lounge; purples and blues replace the yellows and oranges of his usual sound. “Clocked In”, the album opener, is silky and warm, like Muzak that precedes an innocuous dentist appointment. “Chops on the Blade” is a trepid and vaguely paranoid ensemble of sounds behind anxiety-addled raps from June, the closest verses he’s ever rapped to 2016’s “007”. “GRGP” on the back half of the album has soft horns in the back that sound like a yelping cat in a street fight, complimented by raps from California legend Too $hort and Peezy rushing to get his brags, always a half beat behind the shrewd drums.

It’s also a good example of how to effortlessly meld laid-back raps with R&B talent; two of the album’s best moments come from features, with DeJ Loaf’s hook on “Sweet Lady” and Blxst’s verse on “Without You.”

Larry June is at his best when he sticks to his reliable recipe, compounding a few new concepts with each successive project. The Night Shift is June continuing his growth and evolution as an artist, however incremental it may be.