Jeezy: Seen It All: The Autobiography

Young Jeezy, now just Jeezy, has never been known for his brevity. His first three albums featured a combined 53 tracks. The odd thing is, there are only a handful in that original trilogy that feel like filler. But by 2011, Jeezy finally put quantity over quality with his 18 track album TM: 103 Hustler’s Ambition. The album received some of the most middling reviews of his career with critics claiming it had too many features and Jeezy didn’t feel in control of the album. That criticism in no way applies to Seen It All: The Autobiography. Nine of the 15 tracks are just Jeezy and the increased purity results in an album that reconnects to his glory days.

Seen It All does not necessarily break new ground. The album opener “1/4 Block” sets the mood for the entire album. It features a piano backbone, distorted lead guitar, and hard hitting trap drums. Lyrically, it sees Jeezy perfecting his thug life crack rap. And don’t worry, Jeezy still is a master of wordplay. On the album’s lead single “Me Ok,” he squeezes in lines like “bought so many Lambeaus thought I was the lambassedor/dropped so many rollies, thought I owned the rollie store.”

Unlike on TM103 where the emotional tracks felt a bit too hamhanded, Seen It All pulls the heart-strings in the right way. “Beez Like” is the album’s emotional climax. Featuring Boosie Badazz, the two trade stories of serving jail time. Boosie who famously spent the last five years in jail, particularly impresses with lines like “daughter got her first period, I wasn’t there for her.”

The album ends with a track called “How I Did It (Perfection).” While Seen It All may not be a perfect album, it certainly feels as close as Jeezy has ever come to one. Between the dark street stories, guest-filled blockbusters, and emotional sagas, Seen It All feels like the best of Jeezy compressed into 15 tracks, which makes it his shortest album. Sometimes it is quality over quantity.

Rating: 8.0/10

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