BRANDON CALDWELL | DECEMBER 28, 2017 | 9:09AM
Super Bowl week didn't need much of a soundtrack, yet Slim Thug and DeLorean provided it.
In actuality, Delorean made more of a straightforward reintroduction as to who he was as an artist. That’s always a fascinating case study. With every release a musician makes, we constantly run back to the wall and mark off a level higher than the previous one. Slim catered to the entire city; a 6’6” slim dude who played A&R and let no less than 14 different rappers own a piece of his mixtape. DeLorean only needed two. A platoon of producers from Trakksounds to Donnie Houston contributed to what Slim Thug created. DeLo stuck it out with PugTunes to create something bluesy and chop-you-in-the-throat impactful.
We’ll relive the music of the last week one by one. When DeLorean figured he wanted to go back to his essence of rapping for sport, fans got Take Me Back. There aren’t any pre-determined radio singles such as “Picture Me Swangin’” here, yet there aren’t any painstaking moments of soul-reaching honesty like “Khloe” from Hood Politics 2. Yet Take Me Back feels as if it belongs in the same family-reunion photo as DeLorean’s fabled mixtape series. The intro alone uses his ratcheted-up angst and takes a hatchet to everyone within the long-distance roar that was “Aaaggghhh,” before slowly stripping to reveal something else. DeLorean is pissed in that cold Frank Lucas kind of way. DeLorean knows he’s still hustling for his daughter but he won’t ever play by Internet rules. Memes and jokes? DeLorean’s not for the funny stuff. Either you’re going to out-rap him or you’re not, period.