Steve 'Flash' JuonIf anybody has a right to be upset at the ridiculously absurd claim that immigrants are eating people’s pets it’s SleazyWorld Go. While he doesn’t hail from Springfield — Grand Rapids, Michigan actually — both of his parents are from Haiti. As a teen Sleazy moved to Kansas City, Missouri and I have no doubt whatever racist tropes he heard about immigrants before moving were still there afterward. As far as the music of “More Than a Shooter” goes though there’s nothing Haitian about it. Nope. Not even a hint of Wyclef Jean to him anywhere. In fact if you had asked me based on the music alone I would have said he was a drill rapper from ChiRaq, and he certainly places himself in the genre from the word go (pun intended) with the sarcastic lyrics of “Drill Is Dead.”
“They said drill was dead
Turn me up nigga, uh-huh, yap, yap, yeah
I want a nigga to catch a body to this
Nigga, drill ain’t dead, nigga”
Sleazy (born Joseph Daniel Isaac) has the credentials to back up his drill talk. When he was still a teenager he was arrested for armed robbery and ultimately sentenced to four years in prison, earning his release on parole in 2019. By his account the experience changed him. He decided to pursue music instead of felony charges, and moving to Kansas City was designed to give him a fresh start. He started releasing singles and mixtapes during the pandemic and broke out with the viral hit “Sleazy Flow” in 2021, ultimately turning into a big remixed version with Lil Baby. Despite this success “What You Need” with Skilla Baby shows he’s still hungry for more — or at the very least he’s hungry for some P.
“What you need, bae? What you need, boo?
I come from the trenches
but if you hungry, I’ll come and feed you
(I’ll come and feed you)”
Not all of Sleazy’s songs are about opps and sex. On the Vrex & Reapyy produced “Tryna Heal” he croons his AutoTune feelings about the struggles he’s been through. The pain is self-evident as is his desire to self-medicate by smoking “a pack or two,” but I’m reasonably sure his lyrics are far more cathartic. Sing that shit Sleazy. “I know the path I’m on, everybody can’t take it/In the hood when the storm hit, everybody don’t make it/I gave my mind to only a few, I hope they don’t break it.” This is much more than the standard tropes of drill music.
At over an hour long (23 tracks in total) “More Than a Shooter” is also bucking the trend of shorter albums with shorter songs. Streaming services like Spotify have encouraged that from musicians by making the payouts so small, leaving struggling artists no option to flood the market with material hoping to get paid by sheer volume of streams. Even his shorter songs manage to sound longer though. “Black Tears” is only 2:15 long but his tale of “snakes in disguise” allows him to compare himself to 2Pac without it sounding forced or unnatural. Stunnah Beatz & Goldgrain lay the foundation for Sleazy to be surprisingly empathetic, saying he can “feel your pain” and not just his own.
That’s not to say the tropes of drill are completely absent here. The WhiteBoyMadeThis and Sleazy produced “Who the Who’s” takes you right back to the war with a bass heavy, ominous and minimalist track where he vows “if we speakin ’bout who died the most, the opps know they the who’s” in the hook. Even though the song is as dark as a moonless midnight, Sleazy and his friends look like they’re having a lot of fun in the video, riding around in the back of pickup trucks and on the backs of horses. This might be the most Midwest thing to feature in a rap video since Nelly spit his “Country Grammar.”
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical about “More Than a Shooter” going in. The market is incredibly flooded these days for all the reasons already mentioned, and the more music that comes out the less that can stand out from the pack. I’m also about done with the majority of rappers who pitch modulate their vocals, but I have to admit it works for Sleazy on songs like “Good Karma.” Sure lines like “the way that pussy tastes so good I might bite it” are incredibly crass, but they also sound remarkably genuine and sincere. Sleazy goes places other rappers in his lane wouldn’t with songs like “Depression 2,” allowing himself to be vulnerable and making his music relatable to other people who are struggling in the process. Prison doesn’t change everyone. In fact it often hardens people who were already hard going in. For SleazyWorld Go though the change is real. He’s still drill, he’s still not going to let the opps take him down, but the music shows he’s had time to reflect on his life and choose a different path.