Peezy, Philthy Rich ft. Jim Jones – Eastside 

I posted this one a couple of months back in one of my top 10s; this one was on Peezy’s ‘Balling Ain’t a Crime’ mixtape from last year and then on ‘East Side’ the collaboration mixtape that him and Philthy Rich put out in February. But something about the Herb Alpert ‘Making Love in the Rain’ sample, the subject matter of them talking about growing up and their moms and grandmas, maybe the NBA playoffs being back, and today being Mother’s Day has me feeling super nostalgic and I wanted to put it up because it captures that feeling.

Jim Jones has been putting out some of his all-time finest work lately and I’m glad they tapped him for this one.

“I don’t use pens but let me write about it… I got niggas in the pen doing life about it, niggas that I won’t see again lost their life about it, shit runs deep so I don’t sleep plenty nights about it. All the cold nights that we had no heater, in the lobby pumping white with a cold heater.”

I love the interlude in the middle before Peezy’s verse; “Sometimes shit gets a little rough in life; but you know you gotta stand strong and fight through it all my baby. Shit get greater later.”

Peezy then lays down just a real, heartfelt moving verse…

“Knew I was special when they birthed me, I moved out my mama’s crib at 13. Roaches in the Fruity Pebbles when we go to the eat, you ain’t seen no shit like this in your worst dreams. Moved to my granny’s Crib on the West, she ain’t have a lot but she did her best. Going to school smelling like kerosene, fuck this there gotta be a better way for me. Only East Side nigga in the whole school, I was forced to share clothes with my old dude, hardest times of my life and they got harder too… Life gave me lemons I made lemonade, all they see’s a nigga shining but don’t see the pain.”

Obviously real life is more important than music as I’ve unfortunately had to say a couple of times on this site lately, so I’m just happy Peezy survived the recent shooting for his own well-being, but from a music perspective, I’m hyped he’s going to still be out here making music like this. The first couple of times I heard him he didn’t grab me as a fan right away but as I’ve went through his whole catalogue and listened to him more and more over time he’s become one of my favorites not just out of Detroit but out of current artists in general; he’s amongst the most prolific and productive out of Detroit in terms of sheer volume of releases, he brings that certain motivational sense of hustle and hunger, he has tons of great lines, and he puts a lot of heart and soul into his music. Now we just have to hope that his recent indictments he’s been hit with don’t jam him up and slow down his grind.

P.S. he also just put up this song last week the intro is a little long but he slams this one…

“Will I make it out the streets you will never know, I got court in the morning I don’t want to go. Got some niggas doing life and they on level 4, but they all rooting for me they just hope I blow.”

The album intro ‘Ain’t Fair’ also went hard AF as did the third track, Tied In, which featured an always-welcome verse from FMB DZ and a nice contribution from All Star Lee.