Larry has always been himself. Being himself is what’s always made him great and continuously greater than prior versions of himself since he first jumped into an ardently West Coast framework something like fifteen years ago. Listen back to the spoon-fed delivery and unapologetically LA synths that made 2010 album, Cali Grown, a vivid glimpse into what was to come. Dom Kennedy had recently released The Yellow Album and From The Westside with Love, overhauling SoCal’s hip-hop flavor with an undeniable tinge towards a retro, easy-going auditory aesthetic that doubled down on the same principles from a lyrical point of view. With he and Larry at the helm, it was a new era for the West Coast, built on slow beats and good weed. But those were only the seeds planted. More than a decade later, and Larry June has long been harvesting the fruit of his labor, holding the reigns of a movement that has never lost steam. Listen to everything since his debut and hear his auditory evolution founded always in a truth towards his most authentic himself. With the release of lord-knows-which-number studio album or mixtape in his canon, The Great Escape, he and the legendary The Alchemist have pulled together an all-star roster and product worth its weight that only they - out of all names across the modern spectrum - could muster.

 

It would be outlandish or at the very least controversial to say that any one specific project is Larry June’s best. But that argument has to be taken up for The Great Escape if for no other reason than that it, above all others, is a statement of his pinnacle position atop the game as it has never been displayed before. He’s always had great collaborations, and he’s always earned a mystical stature within the ranks of hip-hop itself, where artists respect the unique effortlessness of his prolificity. But The Great Escape is stacked. It’s stacked by so many measures that it’s a testament to his leadership and to The Alchemist’s guiding hand that it even works at all, let alone that it is in fact a masterful display of album flow and steady raps in a hip-hop moment that often misses those key elements on the game’s top shelf. But Larry has always walked the tightrope between the mainstream and his roots. And that shines through his work, through The Alchemist’s, and through the mosaic of featuring names across the album’s 45-minute run-time.

 

Larry June makes everyone better, even those that don’t need any help. Pulling into focus myriad names from different moments and locales across rap’s recent history, The Great Escape is a Larry-led clinic on slowing it down, getting back to basics, and firing off thought-provoking, spoon-fed poetry overtop classic, timeless production. He teaches all ten featuring artists the Tao of June, bringing them all more in touch not only with the meditative flow of the album at length, but with the pillars at the core of each and every one of their individual artistries: rhythm, poetry, braggadocio, storyline, and authenticity. The Alchemist does the rest.

Action Bronson, Big Sean, Ty Dolla $ign, Slum Village, Boldy James, Evidence, Wiz Khalifa, Jay Worthy, Joey Bada$$, and Curen$y. That’s the kind of lineup that doesn’t simply manifest itself into any given album. It’s a handpicked collection of lyricists whose statures in the game span from the highest hip-pop round tables to the most unapologetically raw underground circuits still deftly maneuvering the game’s upper echelon. And every last one of them bends their particularities to the tune of Al and June, where the fundamentals reign supreme, and the outcome lives without boundaries, geographic, epochal, or otherwise.

 

You’ve got your pop-adjacent, pop-culture spanning hip-hop stars: Big Sean and Wiz Khalifa, that frankly bring their best work for the first time in a long time to their respective tracks. Palisades, CA with Big Sean is a particularly keen exhibition of just how invigorating Larry’s Renaissance is for an old dog in search off new tricks. You’ve got your cutthroat, oft-contraversial lyricists: Action Bronson, Boldy James, and Joey Bada$$ who all bring their undying, unapologetic bars to balance the steadfast, consistent nature of Larry’s own pace and outwardly conveyed thought. All three are their same old, unparalleled poet selves. You’ve got your timeless wonders: Slum Village, Evidence (one-third of Dilated Peoples), and Curren$y, who all continue to lay the framework for artists like Larry himself to push through their careers with authenticity always in focus. Evidence is a top choice for unmatched guest verse throughout the whole project, see: Left No Evidence. And you’ve got your West Coast staples: Ty Dolla $ign and Jay Worthy, who match Larry’s geographic aesthetic with ease, albeit in their own homegrown ways.

 

That’s the central truth of The Great Escape - that Larry June, at the zenith of his long-earned career, has such geographically, epochally, and artistically boundless grip on the modern hip-hop spectrum, that he brings an unparalleled collection of hip-hop forces into his sphere, to make his album - with he and The Alchemist at their absolute best - a masterpiece. It’s an album that will define Larry June’s career, and the scope of the modern hip-hop scene, too. It may be controversial, but The Great Escape may veru well be Larry June’s best album (so far).