Amid the humble Florida rapper’s croons and raps about life and pain, there’s a unique voice that’s starting to emerge.
Lil Poppa probably wouldn’t mind if he didn’t get any more popular. From his music, you can tell that the Jacksonville rapper isn’t too interested in photo-ops with Johnny Dang or shopping sprees at Neiman Marcus. Those are just distractions. Mainly, you’re left with images of Poppa sitting alone in his room, fanning away smoke while praying that he can make his grandmother proud and hoping that the pain goes away. The glossy, fast-paced lifestyle of a rap superstar isn’t very appealing to Poppa. Rapping is more of a passion that became a job—there’s no doubt that he loves it, but at the same time, it’s what he has to do to make sure that his siblings and cousins get everything they want.
Over the 41-minute runtime of Blessed, I Guess, Poppa’s constantly second-guessing himself and asking: Am I doing enough? There’s no amount of drugs, money, or sex that can bring back his lost ones, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to ease his hurt. Poppa buries himself in work to make others happy; personal happiness feels all too distant for him. It’s only when his little brother tells him to “stop being humble” he realizes that with how much he’s spent on his siblings, he could’ve treated himself to something too.
Of the various schools “pain song”—NBA Youngboy’s blunt revenge letters, Rod Wave’s bluesy tales of struggle, and Rylo Rodriguez/NoCap’s punchline-heavy poetry—Poppa’s style most closely resembles Polo G’s clear-headed, meditative storytelling. It’s best on display with the twangy guitar of “It’s Alright Again” and somber “Chosen One, Pt. 2,” where every line might as well be followed with a dejected shrug. “My dawg hit my phone and said he losing hope/I say just stick to the plan, he say he losing focus/I be feeling the same way, like, will they ever notice,” he laments. It’s a style that incidentally courts rap traditionalists because of its emphasis on pensive songwriting and straightforward structures.
Admittedly, Poppa isn’t a fan of sitting down and writing out songs, which would make those same traditionalists suck their teeth. He prefers to record in short bursts as lines come to him, which gives his music a flip switch that allows it to go from a slow-rolled measure of talking straight into a head-turning outburst like “Mask On.” “When you write stuff, the whole song is liable to have the same flow,” he explained in an interview last year. “When you punching stuff in, freestyling, you got a chance to play with it… Be creative with it.”
The greatest successes on Blessed, I Guess come when Poppa sets up a hidden camera to find new angles. For a brief moment as the album reaches its climax, he’s no longer “Lil Poppa,” he’s “Ms. Barbara Grandson” and he’s narrating his own biography, flickering between backstabbing friends and the comforting ringtone he’s had since his childhood. The album’s wheels start to spin occasionally: Nearly every song is built on short loops of moody keys trying to become the backbone of a hit. But when those keys are combined with more interesting elements, like the soaring guitar solo of “Boys to Men,” it gives Poppa the chance to stretch his legs and show he can be explosive without losing any of the depth of his slower songs.
When he pushes out the words “I’m blessed,” on the title track, it sounds like he’s struggling to hold his chin up before sighing, “I guess.” It’s said with the enthusiasm of someone who just spent five minutes trying to blow a balloon up before watching it deflate and fly away in the wind. Poppa never finds the answer to his question: Am I doing enough?; He’s aware that no one can help him navigate the nuances of loss, envy, and responsibility, but he never turns hopeless, even when life’s discouraging.
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