Denzel Curry - ZUU ALBUM REVIEW

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I’ve always liked Denzel Curry. He’s a very versatile artist, along with having a standout sound and personality, writing, and even flows that aren’t like anything else in the game right now. He’s never failed to disappoint, and I knew that when his breakout album Ta13oo was a hit, he could only go up from here. I just didn’t expect it to be so soon after that we’d get a new project. ZUU is the title of this project, named after his hometown of Carol City, Florida. What makes ZUU so special? Let’s get into it and find out.

ZUU is a hip-hop record with trap and Southern rap influences. If you want to categorize this as a mood or a vibe, it’s clearly summer. When this first released in May 2019, this was definitely one of the projects I kept coming back to during the summer. In a way, ‘coming back’ was a theme for ZUU as a whole. As I said earlier, Zuu is the nickname of Carol City, a suburb of Miami where Curry grew up. The overall sound and production are reminiscent of Floridan rap, and while it is a great sound, it can be interpreted as being homesick and wanting to return back to his roots, even while idolizing the rappers that came before him from Miami. On top of that, this album just has a lot of things that I like in a rap album: Memorable performances, hard-hitting beats, pretty great writing, and a good Rick Ross feature. Who doesn’t enjoy a good Rick Ross feature? Even if it doesn’t have the complex themes of Ta13oo, it’s the simplicity that makes ZUU shine.

This isn’t my favorite project from Denzel Curry, but this is the project I’ve gone back to the most. When the trendy sound in rap became this druggy Soundcloud rap in about 2015, Curry has been able to stay relevant throughout the last half of that decade and hopefully the future as well. I can’t wait to see what he does next.


7/10


Stream ZUU here

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