WEIGHT OF THE WORLD: ALBUM REVIEW
There are many ways in which an album can break your heart. Some albums rip it out of your chest, while others take a hammer and chip away. Maxo Kream’s newest album delicately tears your heart away, artery by artery, until it slowly stops beating. WEIGHT OF THE WORLD is an unbelievably heavy album. The project takes us through Maxo Kream’s journey as he struggles to accept the death of his brother and come to terms with what it means to live in a world without him. Though Maxo has always been known for his incredible storytelling, he takes it to another level on this album to tell us a deep story of regret.
WEIGHT OF THE WORLD opens with the song “CRIPSTIAN” which acts as a thesis for the entire project. It covers many of Maxo’s familiar themes of gang violence, drugs, and fame, but the track also introduces the motivating force of this project: death. Maxo’s brother tragically was killed toward the beginning of last year and this death rocks both Maxo and, by proxy, this album to their absolute core.
Understanding Maxo’s journey is essential to understanding this project. While he alludes to his earlier works, he never digs into his motivations. Maxo Kream has always been a magnificent storyteller, but in the past, his stories have felt like tales from an uncle who just loves to talk. On WEIGHT OF THE WORLD, rather than his stories wandering around the topics he wants to address, every story is united by loss, which weaves the threads of his tales and pulls them together.
Maxo Kream’s brags on this project don’t hit the same as they used to when he was younger. Even when he says things like, “Swangin' and splashin', that drip designer Bought a new Draco choppеr,” these lines are always followed up with a line that gives his bragging a more insidious meaning. On “FRFR,” he follows up bragging about his new Draco chopper with the revelation that the night before he dreamt about killing his partner. No matter how simple his bars may seem there always lays undertones of darkness.
Maxo Kream even takes some of the most played-out clichés in rap and turns them on their head. The song, “THEY SAY,” is one of those tracks where Maxo calls out everyone who doubted him. He opens with, “And they say Maxo a bitch, they say Maxo a ho. He got rich and he dipped, don't come around no more,” but towards the middle of the track he digs into deeper issues that help us better understand who Maxo really is. He raps, “Daddy doin' years, free my brother, bring Ju home Sheddin' tears at Mmadu Biosah tombstone.” Maxo has a knack for turning these typical moments into masterpieces by subverting our expectations.
Maxo has also found his bag when it comes to features. The list of guests on this project is star-studded and each brings their own energy to the album. A$AP Rocky and Freddie Gibbs sound right at home on a Maxo Kream track, but Maxo expands his range to embrace artists like Tyler, The Creator, and Don Toliver, who both add new sounds to the project without removing the magical storytelling that makes Maxo special.
The heartbreak on WEIGHT OF THE WORLD doesn’t hit you all at once. For me, I didn’t feel much pain until the second or third listen. It’s those single lines that Maxo weaves in and the tone in his voice that show the depth of his pain. WEIGHT OF THE WORLD is a monumental step for Maxo Kream and hopefully represents a turning point in his already illustrious career.