Do you love bangin beats, bars, and BIRDZ? Then do I have an album for you. ZUU is Denzel Curry’s fourth studio album. It’s about half an hour long, possibly following in the footsteps of Kanye’s GOOD Summer, and boy does it utilize every minute of that runtime with bops, skits, and Denzel at the top of his game. It’s the beautiful baby of heavy metal and rap that tattoos a stank on your face until it’s finished with you. Feeling tired? Got 30 minutes left on your way to your awful job? Throw on ZUU and get hyped up to sell some t-shirts.
TA13OO is probably a better album because it seems a lot more work went into conceptualizing a theme and making a different type of album that challenges the listener. But ZUU is something you can just throw on and go wild. The titular track is the tone setter it should be, “RICKY” is the superhero manifesto that begs to be driven to, but if you do you are susceptible to accident. “WISH” just lets you know that Denzel pulls. “BIRDZ”’s lyrics could be written on the sign: Welcome to the ZUU. You may be asking how can Denzel possibly keep that level of energy up for the whole project. “SPEEDBOAT” is how. Just when you think you’re getting tired, Denzel brings the new flow and sucks you right back in with two hard verses, a bridge, and a hook all about the limited life paths of someone growing up in the Zuu. You can go to school (and in Denzel’s case become a rapper), go to the army, or be a gangbanger and they’ve all got guns in common. The rapper has to speak on gun violence or promote an image of being a ruthless gangster to achieve some street credit in certain circles. The soldier obviously wields a weapon as part of his job and the gangbanger uses it for his job, protection, intimidation, and of course, smoking fools. The army man doesn’t get much of a voice in this song but he mentioned it so did too. In the first verse all the gangster has is his dog and a bit of drugs to sell. He soon parlays this into vast wealth, but not without assaulting three characters that he expresses regret for with a “damn”. In verse two Denzel seems to be speaking directly. He tells us about how he wanted to get out of the hood the only way he knew how, jotting down rhymes. He found success but left those who chose a different path behind and their memory lay with their blood in the streets. “YOO” is one of the best skits you’ll ever hear. “SHAKE 88” is the strip club song, and “P.A.T.” is a whole lot of noise that wraps it all up.
If you like hip hop, metal, lyrics, or if you’ve never heard of music and are looking for something to blow your mind ZUU is for you.
