Steve 'Flash' JuonLet me start with something I said about Big Scarr in 2021: “There’s a lot to like about young Scarr, but there’s also room to improve.” Unfortunately he ran out of room far faster than anyone could have anticipated due to an accidental overdose in 2022. The fact he wasn’t gunned down in Memphis may cause some rap fans to breathe a sigh of relief but it brings me no comfort at all. I didn’t just want Alexander Woods to improve as a rapper. I wanted him to live a long, prosperous life with all the trimmings. I wanted him to have a nice house, a nice car, a big family and a noisy dog. Woods should have been a success story not only for Memphis but for the rap scene as a whole. We lose too many rappers to the streets — both rising stars like Scarr and established ones like Takeoff — but we should also take about how many rappers we lose to syrup and pills. The rap music industry eats its own at a rate that should raise alarm and cause calls for change. It doesn’t change though.
“Frozone” doesn’t change either. There just wasn’t enough time for Scarr to grow as an artist. Whatever material he was working on in 2022 was compiled together into an album released in late 2023. Even the video for “Bulletproof” has to pull from footage celebrating the success of “Big Grim Reaper.” It’s damn hard to not find that depressing. I’m trying to focus on the positives as best I can. We’ve got one last album from Scarr. 14 songs. 37 minutes. One last chance to hear from Woods. He might have a posthumous cameo on a Gucci Mane song in the future, but this is our last and best chance to hear what Scarr had to say before he went away.
“Go go go can’t stop.”
The Drvmlord & Xay W. Da Play beat for “Federal” is pedestrian. It’s a simple piano loop that repeats and changes pitch with some heavy bass thrown in. You’re not here to hear from Drvmlord though, and Scarr delivers his no-nonsense bars in a relentless manner. It spooks me a little to hear him bringing up the person who brought him into this world at the end of the song. “Mama just called and said ‘Son, I’m so proud of you/I don’t think you know you the fuckin truth/Fuck all them niggaz, they mad they ain’t touchin you/I’ll kill the world if they fuck with you’.” I love that she was so down for her son. I wish he was still here for her. I know she’s proud of what he accomplished in his short time on this Earth.
I was hard on Drvmlord on the last track, but he delivers a mesmerizing melody for the short “We Wit Whatever.” I get strong Migos vibes from his delivery on this and “H*e” featuring OhGeesy. Scarr was a hybrid emcee who combined the hard vibes of Memphis with the fluid flow of Atlanta. Stefanccino & BangaTheProducer give him an instrumental that’s almost nothing but bass on “Trap Fashion Freestyle” but I appreciate it for making it even easier to hear what Scarr has to say. Scarr’s flamboyant boasting stands out even in a world full of braggadocious braggarts.
“Can’t catch me, won’t catch me, nope
Trap look like +Thriller+, bankroll full of +Jacksons+
You ain’t havin shit, nigga, stop all that cappin
I was paid in the streets way before I was rappin”
On the opener “King of the Jungle” Scarr quips “This rappin shit easy for me like a poem.” That’s my biggest regret right now. For a rapper who allegedly “didn’t have a passion” for rap in the beginning, Alexander Woods was a natural once he took to it as a career. It came so easy for him that we’ll never know how much more he could have been. What collaborations would have come next? What rappers or producers would he have worked with? What topics could he have spoken on with the same passion he found for flossing on his haters? “They See Me” is a statement, but “I See You” would’ve been a powerful statement too.
My ultimate takeaway from “Frozone” is that it’s just not enough. He showed the same promise as he had on his prior work, but at 22 years old he was still a young man just starting to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The untold truth of his overdose is that it may be a sneaky way of the violence catching up to him. A bullet that entered his hip, ruptured his appendix, and caused his leg to need realignment may have been all it took to kickstart an addiction to anything that would ease the pain. He didn’t die the day he was shot, but that gun got to him in the end just the same. Rest easy Big Scarr.