On his promising solo debut, the Memphis rapper punches well above his weight class and firmly positions himself as the top dog of the New 1017.
About a year ago, Pooh Shiesty was lying in bed when an Instagram DM from Gucci Mane popped up on his screen. He didn’t believe it was real until he hopped out of bed and bolted to his dad’s house to show him the text. Shiesty wasn’t flooding the streets with mixtapes—Gucci had only heard one song of his: the Tay Keith-produced “Main Slime.” But here Gucci Mane was, reaching out with the intent to sign him to the New 1017.
Shiesty made his formal introduction on the label compilation Gucci Mane Presents: So Icy Summer, with immediate standouts “7.62 God” and “Monday to Sunday.” It was clear that Pooh Shiesty was the best in his recruiting class, but a solo record was nowhere in sight. After months of anticipation, the Memphis rapper finally tries his hand at a full-length project with Shiesty Season.
Pooh Shiesty has proven himself to be a supercharged battery on singles, and the massively front-loaded Shiesty Season doesn’t give you a chance to forget that. The opening one-two punch of “Shiesty Season Intro” and “Back in Blood” sets a high bar to clear for the remaining 15 tracks. Pooh and Lil Durk form an Edge & Christian-level tag team on the latter. The combination of a looped piano scale and drums on “Back in Blood” makes for one of the album’s simplest yet most memorable beats. “Yeah, you know who took that shit from you/Come get it back in blood,” Pooh Shiesty taunts, punctuating the line with his signature “blrrrd” adlib. Durk doesn’t just match Shiesty’s bravado—the Chicago rapper takes complete control. “His ass playin’, bitch I’m really icy/Pooh Shiesty that’s my dawg, but Pooh, you know I’m really shiesty,” Durk smugly raps. “Back in Blood” was far from unknown when it was originally released in November, but the music video tossed gas onto the flames, making it his first Billboard charting single and No. 1 on Apple Music Charts after passing “the license girl.”
Apart from Durk, Shiesty stands his ground when sparring against big-name features like his label boss and 21 Savage. The down-tempo “Box of Churches” is a surprising mid-album highlight where he reflects on his come-up and refusal to let go of what puts him at ease. “Know I’m a hood nigga, I mismatch designer with the J’s,” he raps. “Though I’m still posted on the block, eat a box of Church’s before a steak.” He goes right back to talking shit with Veeze and frequent collaborator BIG30 on the following track. Veeze and Pooh may sound like they’re in a competition to see who can lean back the furthest in a recliner while murmuring threats over the brassy fanfare, but their love of wordplay (and gunplay) keep your head nodding.
In the album’s later stretches, you start to notice Pooh Shiesty trying to reuse some of his earlier tricks in hopes we already forgot about them. “Take a Life” is practically a remake of “Back in Blood,” all the way down to the bare-bones production and Foogiano’s own shiesty punchline. “Guard Up” is an awkward clash of styles that nearly throws the album off course; Pooh Shiesty sounds like he’s strumming his Draco like a guitar while walking around a beach. These slight fumbles are the issues you’d expect an artist to have when they’re still experimenting with different styles, but Pooh’s confidence never wavers; he’ll approach even the most routine song with the same intensity he would another.
Despite Pooh Shiesty’s visible growing pains, Shiesty Season punches well above its weight class as his solo debut and cements his position as top dog of the New 1017. It may be difficult for him to escape Gucci’s shadow—it’s easy to imagine a younger Shiesty feverishly downloading Wop tapes off DatPiff. But he’s already growing into his own, rarely leaning on tired clichés, overused bars, and callbacks for writing material. If Pooh Shiesty keeps on this path, he won’t be hearing those comparisons much longer.
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