Coming from a city widely known for its grind culture—from the factory workers to the dope boys to the rappers—the most Detroit thing about Lelo might be that he raps like he will spontaneously combust if he doesn’t get it out of the mud. “You ain’t never seen your people starve, that’s the type shit make you more than hungry,” he confesses on “Mourning Money,” the sentimental piano beat sharpening the emotion. In a dreamstate of sorts on the intro, he goes, “I see the lights, I must’ve made it out,” like he hustled so hard that it almost killed him. With his laid-back flow pitched somewhere between the blunted murmurs of Baby Smoove and the boss-rap cool of Babyface Ray, it’s a miracle that he still sounds so passionate and hungry, considering so many of the forgettable rappers of this style seem like they’re on permanent cruise control. But you really feel the bumps and bruises, the hard-earned lessons, the self-motivation. “I done made it out the hood, thank Jesus,” he raps on “Leisure,” which closes with a clip from Belly of DMX talking about how he’s willing to put his life on the line to reach his dreams. You really know you’re cooking when using a scene from Belly doesn’t feel cliché.
At points New Detroit can feel overthought, though, as if Lelo is trying too hard to differentiate his debut album from a mixtape. So there’s a love song that’s too vague (“F.A.L.”) and a few heavy-handed tracks that try too hard to be relatable. “Young, rich, and dumb,” he chants on “Hundred Thousand Ones” which sounds like a lesser version of the sort of optimistic time-to-grow-up anthems on Die Lit or Days B4 III. But at its best, New Detroit stands out not because it’s an album that can be molded to fit the life of any 20-something who has been through some shit, but because it’s his life in his city.
One of the album’s best songs is “Groundhog Day,” an intimate ode to a specific way of life. Fighting off the go-nowhere rhythms that can be easily slipped into (“Different day, same shit/Niggas in the same place, moaning about the same bitch”) and embracing the daily motivation to get after it that’s in their blood: “How the fuck I’m supposed to sleep, there’s a Bentley up the road.” He couldn’t come from anywhere else but Detroit.
