Don’t let the Druski skits fool you: Belly Gang Kushington can rap. Part Jeezy, part Bankroll Fresh, he’s such a dogged trap revivalist that if you told me 15 years ago he was cryogenically frozen like in Universal Soldier, I’d believe you. The drug dealing imagery isn’t nearly as vivid or tense as his forefathers, but like them, he has an uncanny ability to capture a slice of Atlanta life from his point of view: girls doing hair in the kitchen, downing a plate of wings at Lucky Panda, Magic City nights. “From the city where everybody rich and no one got a job,” he claims on “Birds Like Popeyes,” the overstimulating flip of Young Scooter’s classic “Colombia” that helped turn Kushington into an unexpected club hitmaker.
“No Jewelry” might be his hardest song yet. Over an icy new-age trap groove heavy on hilarious eagle squawks, it’s like every line out of his mouth hangs in the air for a few seconds. You might be able to memorize the whole thing after only one or two listens, which might be why it feels like such an instant anthem. There are little bite-sized scenes and stories in there, too: the one time his chains shined so bright he could still see a woman’s body in the dark, a mention of his mom leaving him as a youngin’. My favorite is, “Nigga, I came from grandma beatin’ my ass for all that talkin’ back” because it feels so lifelike. Holding him back is how stuck he is on the internet discourse about his ultra-light complexion: “Nigga had called me white, I think he fooled by my appearance.” We get it, you’re Black. A lot of us have a family member with a similar skin tone; it doesn’t need to become his whole thing. That could get corny fast, but he’ll be aight if he just keeps on rapping like this.
