The Detroit rap stalwart makes hard-hitting music with no frills. His latest project basks in the idea that an album this regionally specific can still have nationwide appeal.
About a decade ago, Icewear Vezzo took a trip to New York to pass around his bubbling Michigan street hit “Dancin.” Featuring the star of the Detroit crew Team Eastside, Peezy, the single was rooted heavily in local tradition—slick punchlines and a funky piano-driven beat. When he played the song for record labels and radio stations around town, the collective response was confusion: It was “as if that shit was the worst shit they ever heard in their life,” he remembered. Years later, the sound of Icewear Vezzo and Detroit rap in general isn’t much different, but the way it’s received is. From Florida to Texas, from Philly to Louisville and even France, Michigan rap’s influence is everywhere.
Raised on Detroit’s East Side, Icewear Vezzo has been a constant in the scene ever since his music blew up in the city’s strip clubs in the early 2010s. His songs are straight-up with no frills: The hard-hitting beats and vivid lyrics attempt to give you a glimpse at the life of a Detroit high roller every time out. You wouldn’t be wrong to say he makes the same song over and over again, but that one song is pretty damn good.
Rich Off Pints 3, the finale to Vezzo’s recent trilogy about living like the bits of Paid in Full where it’s all good vibes, is predictable yet satisfying. He makes bread, throws it at the strip club, blows a bag on cars and jewelry, gets his family right, causes a little havoc, and makes some more. It sounds pretty sweet. Vezzo isn’t saying anything that hasn’t been said before on “Ace of Spades,” rapping over an instrumental so low and ominous that it resembles the Jaws theme, but it works because of how confidently he says it: “Throw the money up until the club empty/Pill poppin’ nigga, keep my gun with me.” Opener “F Blocc” is another standout, full of sleek whooshing ad-libs and disappointment toward everyone not hustling as successfully as he is. Vezzo’s also got a flair for the dramatic. “Took some penitentiary chances for this new Richie,” he raps on “On My Own,” like he’s in a one-last-job heist movie.
The beats, though, are fairly routine. The brooding pianos and pummeling drums aren’t ever bad, but sometimes I’m convinced he types “Icewear Vezzo type beat” into YouTube and clicks download without even listening. The sound is a bit more old school Detroit than the faster, kinetic instrumentals popularized with the emergence of the Flint scene, and I do wish he would mix it up occasionally. But he’s such a good and efficient rapper that it hardly matters. I’ve heard variations of “The 6” beat a couple hundred times, but that doesn’t make the punchlines any less effective.
Variety isn’t exactly the point of Rich Off Pints 3. Vezzo is basking in the idea that he can make an album that sounds this regionally specific while still having nationwide appeal. When major rap stars like Lil Baby, Lil Durk, and G Herbo pop in for solid runs, Vezzo never shaves off the edges of his local style to make them more comfortable. It’s a sign of how far Michigan rap has come. On his next trip to New York, he’ll be welcomed with open arms.
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