Of the many Atlanta rappers who sprung up under the wings of Young Thug, Lil Keed existed on a wavelength all his own. Where Lil Baby and Gunna firmly inserted themselves into the pop-rap marketplace, Keed held onto the weirder edges of Thug’s style, as much an alien crooner as a street rapper. His shocking death last year is yet another unnecessary and tragic instance of a promising voice silenced far too young. Keed Talk To Em 2, the rapper’s first posthumous record, comes almost a full year after his passing, taking time to pay respect instead of rushing to capitalize on Keed’s memory. While the sequel to his 2018 mixtape makes for a fitting enough tribute, it feels too restrained and manicured, weighed down by guests that Keed frequently outshines.
Keed struck a balance between the classic foundation of Atlanta trap and the genre-bending tendencies of rock-influenced rappers like Juice WRLD and Trippie Redd, who appears on the rage-inflected “Get Money.” On tracks like “Hottest,” the beat is all brassy horns and pitch-bent hi-hats, and Keed’s instrumental selections rarely stray outside defined Hip Hop lines, with tightly looped samples and neatly defined drum patterns. Keed’s delivery is where he’s most inventive, with a fluid voice that constantly shape-shifts. Sometimes it’s a tough growl, while other moments it stretches into a swooning falsetto; though he’s not usually straight-up singing, he frequently stretches bars out or emphasizes phrases with a Thug-like vocal run. Though he’s never quite playing a character, there’s a kind of playful cartoonishness to Keed’s delivery that injects even his more anxious and emotional lyrics with a kind of light airiness.
Even if the drums are often routine, the background textures of Keed’s beats incorporate subtly whimsical flourishes, like the fluttering xylophone on “Think About It.” The swirling synthesizers on “Long Way To Go” weave in an EDM influence that’s not too dissimilar from Drain Gang. Jetsonmae’s production on “Bags In The Sky” brings a kind of ethereality that emphasizes an angelic quality in Keed’s cooing voice. By comparison, Keed Talk To Em 2 loses its energy when it strives for a sound that’s of-the-moment more than forward-thinking “Can’t Fall Victim” and “Off Land” feature the guitar stylings that have become so synonymous with artists like Youngboy and Rod Wave, but it’s a sound so pervasive that it even sounds overdone when its originators return to it.
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When Young Thug and Lil Keed appear side-by-side, as on “All I Wanna Know,” it’s even more apparent how directly Keed is influenced by his mentor, almost as if he sprung out of Thug’s skull fully formed. Keed’s far from a carbon copy, though; there’s more of an emo edge to his flow where Thug leans into a pseudo-patois. The beat pushes Keed into more unfamiliar territory, with a warm soulfulness and twinkling piano line that recalls Chance the Rapper—Keed also slips into a Sunday Service-like worship sound on closing track “Thank You Lord.”
While Thug and Keed make for symbiotic duet partners, it’s hard not to wonder if “All I Wanna Know” is a repurposed Young Thug solo cut because of how significantly he overshadows Keed. More frequently, Keed has more gravitas than his guests, with hollow verses from NAV on “Muso Kuso” and Big Sean on “Hottest,” both of whom sound plastic where Keed is a live-wire. The album’s guests are most effectively employed when they serve as a defined counterpoint to Keed’s unique vibrations rather than a paperweight; Cordae’s voice on “Lost My Trust” is clipped and monotone, where Keed’s is more dynamic. The most sincere moments on the album are less telegraphed and more unexpected, like Offset’s verse on “How Many.” When he raps “I still can’t believe that my brother died,” there’s a particular level of poignance, because it could just easily refer to Takeoff as it does Lil Keed.
While Keed Talk To Em 2 is respectful to Keed’s legacy and does its best to treat it with fidelity, it’s hard not to feel the inherent limits of the project. There are traces of what made Keed singular, but the unpredictability that distinguished him from his peers can feel hemmed in by generic beat choices and big-name guests. Where Keed frequently delivered his words in kaleidoscopic color, Keed Talk To Em 2 can at times feel dismayingly static.
