Curren$y on Wiz, Pharrell and The Stoned Immaculate

Saying Curren$y's back seems wrong because he never goes away. The Stoned Immaculate is his second Warner Brothers release, and like Weekend at Burnie's, it presents Spitta at his most accessible. The beats are still luxurious and he still obviously enjoys his own languorous flow, but it's all slightly more precise, 15 percent less weedy (except for "Showdown" - he's post-verbal by the end of the track). As usual, he's chasing paper and smoking as much as breathing, but while the isolation that's implied in his rhymes is touched on here ("Privacy Glass"), guest spots by Estelle and Marsha Ambrosius particularly counter that remote vibe as women enter his musical world.

Unlike former runnin' pardner Lil Wayne, his major label releases don't seem like the things that the mixtapes were building to. Tha Carter II and III pulled together all of Weezy's musical and conceptual obsessions, while The Stoned Immaculate and Weekend at Burnie's feel like ads one more gambit in the Jets Life branding effort, and the truest expression of Jets Life comes on the mixtapes.

Check out The Stoned Immaculate on Spotify.