Despite my former reservations on the genre and my complicated relationship with it, I do like trap music. I enjoy a decent amount of trap artists and only intend to explore more. But as the old adage goes, ‘they can’t all be winners’. Some trap artists do improve over the course of their discography. At the time of writing, Yeat and Megan Thee Stallion fit this bill. Some trap artists find their groove and then stick to it relatively consistently. Artists such as Travis Scott and Young Thug fall into this category. Then there are artists like today’s subject, Gunna, who in my view since DS4, has only been getting worse and worse artistically.
On a musical level, his career is like falling off a mountain in Grand Theft Auto. It seems like it can’t get any worse and then he drops another album. DS4 had some hits (I genuinely enjoyed the song Pushin’ P). It wasn’t the best trap album I’ve ever heard, not by a long shot, but I did see it as an above average attempt at commercial viability. And commercially viable it was, as Pushin’ P became a hit. However, one year later he would release a Gift & a Curse. This album had Gunna rapping about as badly as he’d ever rapped. He had nothing to say, and the chart performance reflected that. The album didn’t really have a hit and only made number three on the Billboard 200, which obviously is still good, but also a marked decrease from his previous album.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been, but I was interested to see how Gunna would recover from legal issues, artistic stagnation, and overall being taken less seriously in the industry. One of Wun marks Gunna releasing a solo album for the third year in a row. All of this context I am providing to emphasize my point. This album is, in two words, creatively bankrupt. This is what the supposed ‘old heads’ are talking about when they say “all rap sounds the same today”. While I don’t agree with that statement, I believe that One of Wun is quite possibly the best argument for it I have ever heard. There is very little variation or passion to latch onto. Gunna has song ideas and production resources on a silver platter, but you definitely wouldn’t be able to tell from this album due to production that is consistently unenjoyable, not helped by the fact that Gunna’s writing is more repetitive than ever.
Collage is a good name for the opener, it is a suitable sample platter of the many issues this album has. Gunna’s nothing flow is the main course, but there’s plenty of other issues here. The hook and verses barely have any variation between each other (Gunna himself does nothing to help this), and the only half decent thing about the track is the production. The song basically discusses Gunna’s continued success despite some setbacks, but he just makes it so hard to care. Questionable writing choices like rhyming “euphoria” with “you more-ia” don’t help this either. Among these other issues, the track is just not fun. Gunna barely inflects, doesn’t flow the best with the beat, nor does he deliver any fun or compelling punchlines.
This is how the album continues for the most part. Neck On A Yacht has Gunna underdelivering on the vocal front as per usual, but on top of that the faint synth sounds like a Fruity Loops default synth. The airiness of the beat could be considered a nice vibe, but not only does that cheap synth ruin it, but Gunna doesn’t say anything that I can vibe to. It’s all just cheesy enough to ruin the immersion. Bars such as “Like titanic they want me to sink” aren’t the worst (or best) bars ever, but they’re derivative and soulless enough to truly drive home the idea that most people making this album didn’t really care. The track “treesh” has a title that truly reflects the quality if it’s supposed to be a misspelling of “trash”. The beat here is actually passable, but Gunna, as per usual, goes in one ear and out the other. He tries very faintly to be melodic at points in the second half of the track, but his inability to inflect renders this pointless. Travis Scott he is not.
There are also others that Gunna dragged down with him in releasing this album. These include singer Normani who appears on “$$$” and mainly serves to provide faint atmospheric vocals to Gunna’s nothing raps. She also does an outro that, while pretty, did not leave much of an impression on me at all. Gunna ranges from practically non-existent to annoying on the track and takes up most of it. He does some melodic inflections on the chorus where he seemingly tries to be Drake but ends up sounding more like Trippie Redd. By that I mean for once he overinflects with this nasally, unpleasant cadence. On “Let It Breathe” Gunna tries to be emotional and fails. The whole vibe of the song (and album in general) is too comatose to sell any real emotion. It doesn’t help that this track is towards the end of the album so the fatigue had more than set in by then. Roddy Rich does his best to save the track and is admittedly not bad, providing a melodic flow with some genuine emotion to it, but his verse is unfortunately insultingly short. I suppose it makes sense given that it’s a trap song in 2024, the age where mainstream songs do seem to be getting shorter. I would say it’s just another unfulfilling moment on an unfulfilling album.
“Time Reveals, Be Careful What You Wish For” closes the album and the track length alone makes this one a stinker. As much as I would have loved more fulfilling and lengthy features on this album, that’s only because they would offset Gunna’s detrimental mediocrity. This song has no features and feels like it tries to strike the same chord as something along the lines of “Til Further Notice” by Travis Scott; being this multi-phased epic, and an emotional climax that ties the album up in a big sad bow. The issues lie in the fact that not only did Gunna not earn this climax, but also the first phase is extremely static and sounds like a leftover from Drake’s Scorpion album. It’s all tied together with an R&B tinged dancey trap beat and it does absolutely nothing for me. It tries to be too much at once while being nothing like the rest of the album. Of course, Gunna basically has nothing to say. The second phase of the song is admittedly pretty cool and a definitive highlight on the album. It’s psychedelic and pretty and I really enjoyed it, but unfortunately it’s a small light at the end of a dark, sleep inducing tunnel. Plus Gunna says nothing of value over it again (though, why would he start now?)
I am aware it is somewhat “cool” in music circles to not be a fan of Gunna, to the point of it being borderline cliche. With that said, I am almost left baffled by this album’s very existence. Gunna is making plenty of money from DS4 and previous albums. I just wonder what he has to prove. If it’s that he’s capable of making an album that isn’t boring, repetitive, or annoying then he failed miserably. One Of Wun is special, in that it’s a special kind of unpleasant. It has nothing to say, it has barely anything to offer in terms of decent production, and it is an album that I disliked so much that I pondered the purpose of its existence in the first place. One Of Wun is not only yet another hit-less pile of slop for Gunna’s catalog, but is one of my least favorite trap albums in recent memory.
1/10
