On “Through the Fire,” which has the type of soulful bounce Kanye West could have made for the Game in 2005, producer and rapper JasonMartin tells Lefty Gunplay he understands the odds the Guatemalan American rapper has been up against since his 2022 release from prison: neighborhood rivalries, incarceration, PTSD, addiction. Lefty had been locked up in California’s notorious Pelican Bay supermax after stabbing an inmate at his former facility; it’s where he’d finish nine years out of an original 13-year sentence for shooting up a house party. JasonMartin tells Lefty that it’s now or never, that in the wake of Lefty’s surprise feature on Kendrick Lamar’s platinum-selling “TV Off,” he’s now in a position to change the direction of his and his family’s lives for good. Lefty, sounding frantic, responds that he’s never been more locked in.
Lefty’s new full-length, Can’t Get Right, a collaboration with executive producer, producer, and costar JasonMartin, is a first test of whether Kendrick’s handpicked choices for next in the West, via their inclusion on last year’s GNX, are panning out. Though technically Lefty’s fifth album, it reflects a rich tradition of cinematic and biographical West Coast gangsta rap debuts: Think DJ Quik’s Quik Is the Name, the Game’s The Documentary, or Kendrick’s own good kid, m.A.A.d city. Album opener “Lord Forgive Me,” co-produced by Scott Storch, begins with what sounds like a drive-by shooting—perhaps not unlike what Lefty heard on the night that sent him to prison for nearly a decade.
The album’s structure mirrors Lefty’s story, a whirlwind of shootouts, paranoia, brief but intense courtships, hotel parties, and the long stretches of solitude only found in prison. Under JasonMartin’s direction, the harrowing details unfold over production that revives the California G-funk both artists grew up on, though the results are a little clichéd and at times uneven. The raucous “Hotel Party” reminds me of the short and debaucherous “Let’s Get High,” from Dr. Dre’s 2001. The album’s centerpiece is a remake of MC Eiht’s classic “Streiht Up Menace,” with the Game himself re-doing the hook nearly word-for-word. The beat has a little too much going on to match the stripped-down magic of its source material, and Lefty’s attempts to interpolate Biggie and Eminem practically beckons the listener to just play MC Eiht instead. His clunky attempt at a love song, “Heavens Above (My Angel),” flips the Amanda Perez classic “Angel” yet mostly evokes the gruff and perplexing chemistry between Ja Rule and Ashanti.
