Every age feels old when you’re in it. At 18, I sighed and wondered if I’d ever recapture the carefree ease of 16; at 22, I mourned the fancy-free 18 year old I’d been. I’m sympathetic to Nettspend, the 18-year-old white rapper from Richmond, Virginia, who’s mythologized by his fanbase, dismissed as a juvenile culture vulture by detractors, and self-styled as “Future, but Gen Z.” He’s spent four years in the long shadow of cloud rap’s mainstream explosion at odds with uncs and peers alike, all while most kids just listen to Don Toliver anyway. What’s a worn-out, mid-career teenage trap star to do?
In Nett’s case, announce and then roll back announcements of a new album that’s been prone to leaks and sandbagged by indecision. early life crisis, which finally dropped last week, feels nostalgic for the present, trying to make something work with a blend of late-stage rage production, Cartispeak, and faux pain rap that never quite becomes his own. The album foregrounds Nett’s ear as a selector and his charisma as a bad influence, giving producers like CXO and Rok room to stretch out their wildest ideas while he spiritually rubs his hands together. But when Nett abandons the disaffected rapscallion bag he controlled on his 2024 mixtape BAD ASS F*CKING KID, the project faceplants into overfamiliar rehashes of Rolling Loud headliners past: too much “I Miss the Rage,” not enough smiling because it happened. It’s as if he’s outgrown his own references, but can’t fathom what to try next.
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Nett’s big studio record poses an inopportune question: Is he just getting too old for this shit? Perhaps it’s because, much like adulthood itself, the album arrives after five to seven false starts, as well as the 15-track BAFK. On his proper introduction, Nett seems keen to fashion himself in the mold of new-wave rage stars like Che and Osamason, burning his low-end to a crisp and putting on his best Keef squeak. But he’s not ready to eschew the Justin Bieber comparisons yet—not now that the crooner’s stock is back up. “I get soft-spoken, girl, when I’m talking to you,” he mews on closer “lil bieber,” on the hunt for his one less lonely baddie. Among the strongest moments on the album, it’s a “Don’t Stop Believin’” for the Twitch generation, riled up by writhing ad-libs and sprinting timpanis.
The sit-forward-and-lock-in moments on early life crisis are unassuming: cheekily rhyming “limoncello” and “mellow” like Tobehanna’s finest on “hey, hello”; the nasty, dirtbike-revving bassline on “sick” that keeps an otherwise laggy song in perpetual high gear. Nett isn’t exactly known for lyrical acumen, but his punch-in-and-trail-off delivery stands out on an album that oscillates unevenly between party highlight reel and war story. “When I’m in the jet/I get to put up my legs,” he preens on “stab,” a CXO and Lg joint that brings to mind Tokyo Drift and “steep one” sent simultaneously through a shredder. In this mode, Nett is a ball, a regular Jason Shepherd having his way on Universal’s dime.
