Young Nudy: Gumbo Review

Spoiler: It’s not good

By: Harrison Spieler

A few weeks ago, Young Nudy released his newest studio album Gumbo. Although I am not a huge fan of Young Nudy, one of my friends with similar music taste begged me to listen.However, I found this album to be very boring. The only aspect that was remotely interesting was the theme. Young Nudy titled all his tracks after food including, “Pancake,” “Pot Roast,” “Shrimp,” and several more. I love when artists reflect on their creativity by connecting the names of their tracks and albums. This was also fun because the theme implies Nudy is cooking up a potluck of delicious tracks for his fans to enjoy. 

I know I sound like a hater, but this is only the second Young Nudy album I have listened to. As a Pi’erre Bourne fan, I have listened to the collab mixtape with Young Nudy, Sli’merre, multiple times. It is not my favorite project, but I still greatly enjoy the album. Before listening to Gumbo, I believed I would enjoy the album. After listening to the album twice, I would not add a single song to any of my playlists. Most of the tracks start with a 15-20 second introduction of the beat. I enjoyed each song’s production quality and could not help but bob my head with excitement due to how good the beats sounded.

However, my disappointment stemmed from the lyrics. Nudy applied no creativity with the flow and sound of his bars. This was even more disappointing because the album’s production was amazing, so it felt like a waste of good sound. The lyrics were so bland and disappointing that I could not even quote one line from the album; even 21 Savage’s feature on “Peaches and Eggplant” couldn’t save the track from its dullness. Nudy’s choruses were also bland, boring phrases mostly about money and himself with slow and soft pacing.. I felt like I was going crazy trying to decipher what exactly Nudy was trying to tell me. I felt like Nudy was trying to whisper to me for 40 minutes and that drove me mad. Overall, I found no reason to return back to the album, and I would rate the project a 4/10. Although I did not like this album, I won’t write Nudy off completely, as he has shown potential throughout his discography. With some refining of lyrics and flow, Nudy can make a comeback with his next album and we can pretend this album never existed.