Full Court Press

Girl Talk. Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., and Smoke DZA

After Gregg Gillis, known as Girl Talk, released All Day in 2010, he stated he wanted to move away from creating feature length party mixes in favour of creating and collaborating on more original content with artists he admired. His first attempt was 2014's Broken Ankles EP where he tailored his colourful and eclectic mash-up style wonderfully for Philly rapper Freeway. Since then there have been a string of one-off singles, but no other substantial releases. That is until now. Broken Ankles, his album-length collaboration with Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., and Smoke DZA, seemingly appeared out of nowhere and is not at all unwelcome. Although, the album sonically does not convey the sense of urgency set out by the title. It is quite smooth, at times soulful, a much more laidback vibe than his last EP. And that is certainly indicative of the guests Gillis is working with this time around. There's no angry threats of violence or introspective bars about coming of age in the mean streets of Philly, so why do we need hard beats? Instead, we have some 2000s-era pop-rap instrumentals that compliment bars about girl troubles and smoking weed. There is an abundance of the latter.

The first half of the record is quite decent. We have the opener Mind Blown, which is not heavy on substance (unless the substance we are talking about is marijuana), but does provide a catchy, chill vibe that I find myself swaying to. I also really enjoyed Season which has a watery, submerged quality that I get lost in. Smoke DZA handles all the vocals on this track, and never having heard him before, I think he has a really good voice, decent flow, and put together a pretty great chorus. No Singles was also a pretty good track and I especially liked the way the beat goes into slow-mo towards the end; all the voices stretch and melt along with it. After that though, the record does tend to run a little on the plain side, surprisingly due to Gillis consistently riding in that classy framework. How many instrumentals here are backed by soul vocal samples? The answer is a lot. I'm not sure if it's a case of him catering to the artists he's collaborating with, but I know for a fact that Gillis is more versatile than this. The odd time we do step out of this frame, like on the funk, R&B stylings of Ready For Love, or the club-ready Ain't No Fun, the attempts feel pretty cheap and Wiz Khalifa's vocals, especially on the former, are not strong enough to carry the tune in it's desired direction.

Broken Ankles is a pretty easy-breezy little album with some decent production and some consistently good performances. The main issue is that the album runs short on ideas relatively quick on both the instrumental and lyrical fronts. In any case, I'm glad Gregg Gillis is still getting out there working on music. I really hope that it won't be another eight years before we get another album from him.