Artist: GoldLink

Album: HARAM!

Label: RCA Records/Squaaash Club

Release Date: June 18, 2021

Listen:

Spotify
Youtube

Background

The DMV area (Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia) has always boasted a rich background in arts while being one of the most known metro areas in the U.S., especially with Go-go style. Although one could say the music scene, in particular, has been disrespected and underrated for a long time, it has never been without its lack of talent, whether it be Clipse, Missy Elliott, the Neptunes, or in the most recent decade rappers like Wale, Shy Glizzy, Fat Trel, Logic, Q Da Fool, and many more. In this scene, GoldLink was also able to rise out with his extremely unique and interesting take on a blend of house music and hip hop. /u/TheRoyalGodfrey wrote an excellent post on how Azealia Banks arguably pioneered this movement that would come to light with GoldLink’s rise. Per Goldlink’s own words in a 2014 Complex interview, here is how he described the sound

​​ The Soulection-released single perfectly embody a concoction of funk and soul smoothness, classic hip-hop vibes, and a bass-heavy low-slung groove, that all together make up the ever-evolving future bounce sound. “Future bounce is still yet undefined, but I like to look at it as an uptempo bouncy sound with a very nostalgic feeling backed behind it. Imagine Montell Jordan’s ‘This is how we do it’ on crack”

…

It’s very different, yet there’s still a “hip-hop” bounce and element to the sound. So I use my voice as an instrument to fully complete a track to make the electronic styled music, music.

This sound was in most display with the release of his critically acclaimed 2014 debut mixtape “The God Complex”.

Planet Paradise (Prod. by Louie Lastic)
Bedtime Story (Prod. by Louie Lastic)
Sober Thoughts (Prod. by KAYTRANADA)

Despite ending on several best of 2014 lists, Goldlink kept an anonymous persona for most of the year, spending most of the year wearing masks to not reveal his look and barely doing interviews. His hype was strong enough during this period that Andre 3000 decided to show up to GoldLink’s first London show ever (which also featured another up-and-coming rapper by the name of Little Simz). During this time, GoldLink was also heavily affiliated with the rise of Soulection (an independent music label/collective), along with other producers like KAYTRANADA, Mr. Carmack, Sango, Sam Gellaitry, TEK.LUN, and more. After being named on the 2015 XXL Freshman List, GoldLink released “…And After That, We Didn’t Talk” through Soulection to majorly positive acclaim, again displaying more of his future bounce sound, although also distancing away from it and focusing on more slow, melodic production and songs. This album also featured numerous up-and-coming artists such as Anderson Paak, Masego, Louie Lastic (a staple in GoldLink’s projects since the start of his career), Galimatias, and more. For the next year, GoldLink’s career was mostly quiet other than the release of two loosies, Fall In Love featuring fellow DMV artist Ciscero and produced by Canadian producers KAYTRANADA and BADBADNOTGOOD, and Untitled with Isaiah Rashad. However, in 2017 GoldLink released what would become one of the national summer and DMV anthems: Crew. Featuring fellow DMV artists Shy Glizzy and Brent Faiyaz (in what would arguably become the backbone to the start of another incredible artist’s career), the single was eventually nominated for a Grammy and peaked at #45 on the Billboard Hot 100 (the only charting song in GoldLink’s career). Stereogum has a great article here on why the song was such a hit for the DMV artist if anyone is interested. This single was followed up by the release of his 3rd album, At What Cost, which also featured artists such as KAYTRANADA, Louie Lastic, Lil Dude, Steve Lacy, Matt Martians, and more. Usually regarded as his best project with The God Complex, this album was able to capture the essence of go-go music, Washington D.C., life and death, and more. Per this DJ Booth article,

Obii Say, a fellow DC rapper, collaborator, and executive producer on At What Cost, explained all the intricate transitions that play a part in the album’s pacing. “The transitions capture the spontaneity, the unpredictable pattern of DC,” he points out. “Go-go is one aspect, significant because it’s spontaneous. We wanted to translate that energy, capture the city’s elements. Different aspects, different parts for people who are from here and for people who aren’t. DC is best understood through experience, but the next best thing is to relate.” The abrupt, impromptu shifts happen swiftly and suddenly. The gunshots that happen on “Meditation,” the stuttering self-destruction that plays out at the end of “Have You Seen That Girl,” a vigorously vicious freestyle is interrupted by a soulful choir singing of heartless triggers―each of these moments are like lightning striking on a cloudless day, but each one is meant to evoke how calm can turn to chaos in the blink of an eye. The first listen is like boarding a roller coaster blindfolded, you don’t see the loops coming but you feel each one―the thrill of not knowing when your world will be turned upside down.
Tone and atmosphere were a huge focus in making At What Cost feel alive. The album’s meant to transport listeners into a storyline that’s more broad than linear, but which can easily be followed. The “Opening Credits” sound like a sample from a movie clip, a haunting premonition of what’s to come. Every song has significance, but one of the most notable to the story is the KAYTRANADA-produced “Hands On Your Knees.” The beat is mesmerizing but there’s no rapping, GoldLink is only mentioned in the narration of Kokayi, an OG DC sage who emulates the lead mic at a go-go show. Kokayi playing the lead mic and interacting with the crowd is reminiscent of stepping into any club, but his is a DC club.

Needless to say, I could write up a lot more on this album but for now, I recommend anyone interested to read /u/Pasalacquanian’s AOTY writeup he did on this in 2017. Finally, GoldLink released Diaspora, his 2nd official studio album in 2019. Making the album title proud, the rapper was able to blend several different sounds which included Afrobeats, Reggae Fusion, R&B, Dancehall, and as always included many interesting collaborators hailing from Ghana, London, Kenya, and Los Angeles. Although many considered this his weakest project to date, the rapper was still able to step outside his comfort zone and blend in these foreign sounds. However, something in GoldLink’s career at this point was very clear, and that was the fact he had pretty much separated himself from the Future Bounce sound and settled for a much more “lazy”, slowish and melodic flow (to the tune of someone like Smino or Duckwrth). In each project to this point of his career, you were able to tell the sound and production’s direction was categorically different and saw GoldLink step outside his normal zone and try to challenge himself.

Mac Miller Post and Lead Up to HARAM!

The next 2 and a half years were turbulent, to say the least. On November 26, 2019. GoldLink posted “that” Mac Miller post on his Instagram. This post has effectively ruined GoldLink’s reputation for good (if you still search his name on Twitter or Reddit these days 9 times out of 10 it’ll be “fuck GoldLink” because of the post). I’ve posted before about my thoughts on this but to quickly summarize it’s 2 things. 1: GoldLink tried conveying in quite possibly the worst way about his thoughts on The Divine Feminine being slightly influenced by And After That We Didn’t Talk and 2: It is a fact that Mac and Link were pretty close friends (he was one of the last people Mac hung out with before his death + being his opener for the GOOD AM tour). Either way, the matter of fact is this post took a huge hit on GoldLink’s reputation and he probably won’t ever be looked at the same no matter what.
For the next year, GoldLink was almost completely silent other than being part of Tyler, The Creator’s IGOR tour, as well as this feature on KAYTRANADA’s album BUBBA, in what was his only collaboration for the next 1 and a half years. On November 20, 2020, GoldLink finally broke his silence by releasing what is undoubtedly the most strange collaboration with KAYTRANADA to date, Best Rapper in the Fuckin World. The first and most noticeable aspect of this track is the muffled effect on his voice, which is something that plays a major role in HARAM! as I’ll explain later on. In this song, he includes some very strange and unorthodox flow/lyrics (including a line about Mac), and it could be argued this style was heavily influenced by fellow underground DMV artists NAPPYNAPPA and Sir E.U. His next loosie, Dunya, continued this voice effect and featured underground U.K. artist LukeyWorld who would go on to be featured on HARAM!. Produced by Rascal, the production again seems to be GoldLink starting to go in a different direction from anything he had done to that point in his career. Coupled with this was Leak.mp4, a quickly-deleted loosie he posted on his Instagram. This served as the best preview for what was about to come with his next project, as GoldLink spits over an unorthodox beat with the muzzled voice effect and uncommon flows. There’s also this snippet featuring fellow DMV artist Ciscero (who has collaborated with him numerous times) in what seems to feature a full music video that will likely never be released at this point. Something important to note is that the entirety of the album was made in Europe, and GoldLink himself has been living in London since 2019. This serves as a huge reason behind what was about to come with HARAM!, his sound, and the featured artists.
On June 9, seemingly out of nowhere GoldLink released White Walls, a dark, grimy atmosphere song with a kind of haunting hook that sees GoldLink continue to utilize the muzzled voice filter. Along with the single, he announced HARAM! and released the tracklist paired with the very strange but interesting cover art. When asked about the cover, GoldLink explained he was heavily influenced by Metallica’s Black Album cover, which was a super minimalistic cover in a time when most metal album covers tended to be on the maximalist side. The rapper also went on a strange tweet rant that included another Sheck Wes diss and an Azealia Banks shoutout.
With little to no promotion by RCA, no one knew what to expect or what was to come with this album. Looking at the features listed in the tracklist announcement, the first thing one could see was the inclusion of several underground U.K. artists that most likely no one in North America would be familiar or ever heard of (including Rizloski, Rax, LukeyWorld, Fire!, Dan Diggerz and more). You also had what remains PinkPantheress’ only ever feature to date, who at the time was amid an incredible start to her career off TikTok hype. GoldLink’s projects have always included extremely unique and interesting collaborators and producers that normally aren’t seen on most hip hop projects and with HARAM! we would see this trend continue. Joe Perez, a creative director who’d previously worked with artists like Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, Beyonce, Billie Eilish and more served as the executive creative director for this album. GoldLink explained that when speaking to Joe about the album’s direction and concept, he wanted to have a sort of “dystopian vibe combined with U.K. pirate radio”. Grime legend Dizzee Rascal also heavily advised GoldLink during the creation of the album.

Release and Review

Nevertheless, GoldLink officially released HARAM! on June 18, 2021. As mentioned before, straight off the bat the first noticeable aspect of the album will be GoldLink’s use of this muzzled, static, unapologetic-like voice effect throughout much of the project. When asked about this, the artist has mentioned a few reasons as to why he decided to go in this risky direction. Knowing he has a great and unique voice, GoldLink felt like it would be challenging to the listeners if he added a filter to his voice and distorted it to change it. Per his own words on the use of it:
https://streamable.com/4w7gdo

GoldLink also posted a quickly-deleted IG post a few weeks after the album’s release which I believe can add a lot of background for what went into the album’s direction:

I made “HARAM” with the sole intent of being disruptive and unpopular to the masses. A huge fuck you to the ideology of capitalist western fame and industry elitism. The idea of conforming your art to be a “bigger”, more profitable artist to an establishment and group of people that don’t give a fuck about you. To making a decision against selling your soul for cheap trinkets, bullshit bitches, finite friendships, and brand deals…only in order to sell your right of opinion and passage of humanity. Constantly trying to fit into a box that you will never fit into. And seemingly get replaced by whatever/whoever “next” is. And nobody ever tells you when that time is yours to cherish or when that time is up. Regardless of what the narrative is about it or about me, “HARAM” is for the future. Not for people on IG who still read posts. But for the children that have to grow up in a dystopian, dysfunctional, post covid world of mediocrity, safety, and misinformation. Where an artist is too concerned about not losing the little they have, instead of trying to create the change we need to actually move this culture forward. “HARAM” was for you. Not me.

Keeping this in mind, listening to the album will make considerably more sense. With HARAM!, GoldLink is able to create a sound that borrows from club music, grime, R&B, and more in what ultimately proceeds to be an eclectic listen. With the muzzled, distorted voice effect, GoldLink can add value to a lot of these tracks by making them more unnerving and causing some sort of reaction. In addition to this, you have GoldLink working with a multitude of U.K. artists, as well as creating the album in London, Paris, and Amsterdam. What I believe makes this project such an intriguing and interesting listen is how in parts it could be seen as incohesive, disjointed, bizarre, yet for some odd reasons, it works. One of my favorite parts about listening to his projects is usually paying attention to who was involved with each track and so on. Terrordome was co-produced and co-written with Tyler Johnson), who in recent years produced and co-wrote the entirety of Harry Styles’ last 2 albums, as well as helping produce in Sam Smith’s last album. This might make sense why (as is the case in a lot of these songs), this track can be seen as out of place, with GoldLink’s muzzled and distorted voice clashing against this futuristic, upbeat production and culminating with this catchy hook that could be probably heard in the next Harry Styles album (per his own words, “Tyler Johnson wanted to do a session. He’d been making the Harry Styles album, and I thought, ‘Right, he’s going to fucking hate this.’ He didn’t. We ended up making ‘Terrordome’, which is, to me, a pop record that stands the test of time”). 202 (produced by RIO of Nez & Rio, who are responsible for some HHH favorites like Man of The Year, LPFJ2, Druggys With Hoes Again, Gangstas, etc.) shows up as the second track in the project and is something you wouldn’t be surprised if Isaiah Rashad spit on, almost sounding like a futuristic sequel to their previous Untitled collab I mentioned earlier. In the first two tracks, you’re able to hear hints of strange but large normalcy, with a prime example being NLE Choppa’s feature in which he spits his usual bars with interesting pseudoscience beliefs, contrasted with GoldLink just sort of popping up for a bit at the beginning with the muzzled voice effects. For this track, GoldLink mentioned

The first song we made, in Paris during the riots. I turned up the distortion filter as much as you possibly can and it just kind of just screeched. You can hear rumbling in the background and I started yelling. It was really just a track of our emotion. And I didn’t want to finish it. I didn’t want to add words to it. I thought that the feeling was enough. Overall, is this the absolute best execution of the direction GoldLink was aiming for and experimenting with? Probably not, but as with each of GoldLink’s first 3 projects, it works well enough to have you intrigued by the extreme variety and nuances in each song’s production, feature choice, lyrics, and most of all the DMV’s rapper voice.

With the aforementioned 202, you get the same feeling again except with an even murkier beat, where the distorted filter effect is on and Link’s voice is even higher. Overall, you get the feeling that you’re close to normalcy but still have more prominent hints. By the time you get to White Walls, the album’s first single, the project finally starts to vaguely come into its own, with the murky lilting beat clashing against the vocal effects to the point they show up fully with his voice in an even lower register, making it more prominent. Even with the different flows throughout this song, you can hear the DMV artist carrying those high, almost nasally e’s and then working it into a unique flow around the 1:00 minute mark of the song, in which we can see him fully stretching the song out and getting the concept going in full. Here you’re able to experience “HARAM!”, with its nasally dragging flows, murky lifting production, almost offbeat vocal samples, etc. After this song, the album pretty much completely opens up in terms of production and sounds. You’ve got the distorted voice effects, flows and tones, diverse song selection, all being sincerely executed, from the lilting/abnormal White Walls, to GoldLink taking a shot at synthwave with Terrordome, to the up and about euphoria on Wild and Lethal Trash! GoldLink is simply doing what he wants, not even necessarily off-putting but just made to be free, in turn, the final product being off-putting. You have the artist selecting mixed reception features from Rich the Kid and NLE, and then for everybody else? U.K. MC’s/artists, and then the one state just about no rapper comes from, Alabama. We are seeing Haram selections all over the place, but yet for some reason they work. It’s only Haram because American Hip-Hop- can be so locked in/predictable, and that’s what this album largely is commenting on through its different sounds and directions, and largely executing it well.
When I first saw the feature list announced for this project, what interested me the most (other than PinkPantheress which I’ll touch on later) was who this Rizloski guy was and how that connection even happens. Pretty much the only thing I could find on this guy was this 50 second YouTube snippet, a 10-minute Boiler Room set (in what feels like a perfect setting for an album like HARAM!), and Shackles. Delving deeper into this guy’s sound, half of it sounds like it would fit perfectly on a Frank Ocean or Sonder project with the other half being more straightforward UK rap. Hearing his alternate outro for Spit on Me, as well this other outro that was supposed to make the album is still some of the most beautiful singing and music moments I heard last year. It’s discovering artists like this, Kali Uchis in God Complex, Masego/Smino in And After That We Didn’t Talk that partly makes hearing these GoldLink projects such a cool experience. The rapper mentioned a few times this album has to be experienced at full volume in a closed space at least once for the full experience, which makes sense considering the sort of vibe the album gives at times as if it was made in an abandoned warehouse with no rules. To further prove this point, here’s a quick video of Fire! and Link performing Culture Clash at a small party. As always, one of the biggest weaknesses GoldLink has in this project is his tendency to kind of get outshined by the features, as well as weak songwriting. At this point in his career, however, it’s something that you just kind of come to expect since it ultimately ends up working for the best, properly using each artist to their best ability and use (as is the case with Bibi Bourelli in the closing track, Cindy’s Daughter). Throughout my relistening experience for this album, I often found myself wishing GoldLink was able to expand on what he was aiming for with a song in terms of sound and direction, but by the time I was doing I was already fully captivated by the next song.
To finish off this particular review, I want to highlight and talk more in-depth about a few specific songs:

Wild and Lethal Trash! (feat. Santigold & Fire!) [Prod. by Sam Gellaitry]

This song (which I consider the arguable best track of last year) holds a special spot in my heart for me as it sort of culminates and odes back to the Soulection movement, with Sam Gellaitry (an incredible and talented Scottish producer) and GoldLink having been 2 of the most important artists behind the rise of Soulection, in what is a collaboration that should’ve happened at least twenty times by now. Nevertheless, it serves as the first time (from what I can tell) that Sam Gellaitry somehow officially produced a song for a rapper and it only makes sense GoldLink would be the person to do this. Sammy G absolutely killed it with this production, which ends up being something that sounds as if it was sampling an old Sonic the Hedgehog game, slowly but surely building up towards the peak of the song when U.K. legend Santigold lends her voice for the bridge, for then all 3 artists to spit back and forths in the final verse of what perfectly fits this luscious and grandiose beat (per GoldLink, he told Sammy G “I just want it to sound expensive. I wanted the palette to be grand. Whatever you think Watch the Throne sounds like, that’s the way I want it to sound”). Originally, GoldLink had recorded the song 15 times before deciding he wanted Fire on it as he felt he wanted a rougher voice to go against his smoother voice, and this was a more than welcome decision as the British rapper absolutely kills his feature and adds a much needed polar opposite feel to it.

Evian (feat. PinkPantheress, Rizloski & Rax)

Fun fact about this song, GoldLink said he premiered and tested this song out at different gay clubs in London since it was partly made for the gay community. Produced by Kintaro (Thundercat’s brother and former member of the band The Internet), this song sees GoldLink and company hop on a production that uses the clap & synth palette in a way that leads to more house elements than it does Drum n Bass. Being the former keyboardist for The Internet (and currently part of Thundercat’s tour band), it might make sense why this song is much more keyboard-heavy. GoldLink specified that during the making of this song, he told all 3 features where he wanted them to go on during the song and let them do their thing, which is evidenced by PinkPantheress flawlessly messing around throughout the background of the song with Rizloski coming in while GoldLink is mumbling. At points, this song just makes you feel as if you were in a crowded, small boiler room set with all of these talented artists coming in and out for what turns out to be one of the coolest songs of the year. If you don’t believe me, here’s a video of GoldLink/PinkPantheress/Rizloski performing the song last week at a house party
https://streamable.com/3sv9ek
Whether it’s the production going from relatively slow to very quick, everyone switching in & out, and just the lack of a proper song structure formality (a theme throughout the entirety of HARAM!) that sees GoldLink again choose to use the muzzled/distorted voice effect, this song epitomizes what a cool and fun song should be. Another notable thing is to note that this song sounds perfect for what a peak Azealia Banks song would’ve sounded like back in 2012-14, and it’s a shame she didn’t get to have a part in it. When asked about how the collaboration came to be, PinkPantheress responded:

He messaged me on Instagram about a session and it goes without saying that I simply had to go. It was my first time at a recording studio as well, so I was nervous enough that I had to bring two friends to join me. It was amazing to be part of that track, the producer Kintaro killed that beat and I’m generally a huge fan of that kind of house style of music so I was eager to sing the hook.” And GoldLink A friend of mine had sent me a record from PinkPantheress on SoundCloud and I said, ‘Who the fuck is this girl?’ We got in a session and I’m just cutting a bunch of records and testing out different sounds. From there, I kind of Quincy Jones-ed the whole thing where I wanted her here. I really wanted to recreate this kind of UK garage sound that we’ve been missing for years now, but modernise it.

Girl Pacino

In the only other song produced by Kintaro, we again see the producer create a very dreamy, ethereal, unorthodox just cute beat in which GoldLink effortlessly flows while singing and rapping about his known past relationship with Justine Skye (who Raindrops was also originally about and actually featured). At the end of the song, we get an uncredited brief cameo from yet another underground U.K. artist Deji Okeze (who currently has 120 monthly listeners but does have this collab with Lancey Foux) in what finishes off this excellent track. When asked about the song, GolldLink said:

I’m a fan of Kintaro [Jameel Bruner, former member of The Internet]. We’ve been friends for about six years. He’s so weird, in the best way possible. I heard the song on his SoundCloud and hit him up. He’s like, ‘Do you like it? You can have it, I just don’t have the stems.’ I was like, ‘Whatever, man, just send it.’ And every time I hear it, I think of him saying, ‘This is going to go diamond!

Favorite Lyrics

Hate all the bullshit raps
I don’t wanna name no names, but everybody know I’m back, back
I don’t give a fuck ’bout a bitch
Look how I walk like this
How many niggas this young, this good, can even fuckin’ talk like this?
How many niggas you know like this?
Wrist so froze, frostbite my wrist
I’m top one in a top ten list
HARAM! all year, I’m back, I’m back, bitch

“Wild and Lethal Trash!”

Ghetto church music for my yutes
My partner growin’ up said, “When you flash it, better shoot”
My shooter always told me, “Don’t you worry ’bout the truth’
The truth is the music business fucked up since “Crew”
I went from not having it all to having it all in a day
Then I got everything, then my soul started fading away
Nigga so famous, my whole city start feeling a way
Nigga so famous, that when he post the world feeling a way
Remember Soulection me? Remember 2014?
Remember them double XL niggas who hotter than me?
Now the hood love me, the Blackest women, they riot for me
Grammy’s on Grammy’s, Grammy’s on Grammy’s like niggas OD’d

“Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk”

Star with the David’s, cook up the pies
Rollin’ with the mandem, had to throw a tantrum
Hit her with the dance moves, she said, “How could you?”
Woop-woop-woop, feds on my ass
Runnin’ from my past, pants fall off my ass

“Wayne Perry”

I was sixteen when I bust my case
When I start rapping, had to hide my face
I was movin’ packs right up out my place
Had to bust moves so I leave no trace

“Culture Clash”

Lil’ boy swim, lil’ boy drown if that nigga ain’t used to water
Crack cocaine, yeah, a young nigga tryna get it like Coach Carter
Dah-dah-dah-dah, they know Pressa, she need runnin’ down, John Connor
Fifteen shots like I’m Vince Carter, told her partner she from Dower
Campin’ out, camp for hours, CD look like CN Tower
Got a grave and a flower, young nigga, he came from powder
Got finesse, got jugg, Novocain and super sour

Pressa on “Culture Clash”

It’s something ’bout how you never round when there’s no one around
Your heads in the clouds
I’m never tryna bring you down
‘Cause I need you up there, stay up there
Oh, I love it when you look back at me like
What the fuck do you want?
What you lookin’ at? Uh-huh
And my lovin’ doesn’t come with receipt
‘Cause I don’t give a fuck? Here you go
I don’t want it back, no-oh
If you are ready to see (If you are ready to see)
Might come back here next time
Too much anxiety (That’s just too much anxiety)
This time I’ll be with you, it’s only new (Ahh)

Rizloski on “Spit On Me”

Yeah, you know that we be wrappin’ niggas up just like a mummy (Just like a mummy)
He get shot, it execute him, so I hit him like a zombie (Brrra)
They askin’ will I kill again, I’ll do it for some money (For the cash)
Whole team steady ballin’, bitch, we comin’ like the Sonics (Like the Sonics)
Ten-piece, some five to the face, five to the chest, I gave him Crumpy’s (Chicken wings)
Thirty shots up in this Drac’, he keep on runnin’, I keep dumpin’
They tellin’ me to stop shootin’, but them bullets keep on comin’ (They keep on comin’)
Bitch, you know how we be comin’, we turn brains into salami (Into salami)

NLE Choppa on “Extra Clip”

Discussion

How did you feel about the distorted voice effect? Do you feel as if it had any use at all (even with his explanation)?

Did you find the project too feature-heavy or was it just right as is the norm with his projects?

How do you feel about the extremely heavy U.K/European influence throughout the album (whether it’s DnB, house, grime, etc)?

Where do you rank this album in GoldLink’s discography?

What’s your favorite song on the album? Favorite feature? Favorite beat?

What significance do you think the title has?

What direction do you want to see GoldLink go next? Do you think him being an independent artist again will be a good or bad step for his career?

Do you think GoldLink will ever be able to recover reputation-wise from the Mac Miller post?

Additional Links:

Dead End Hip Hop Review
RNGLDR Review
Podcast Episode Interview with GoldLink on HARAM!

If you’ve actually gotten to this point and bothered reading any of this thank you lmao, hopefully some of you found it interesting enough to revisit the album or just give it some thoughts (whether good or bad). Definitely let me know in the comments how you guys felt about the album
Also special shoutout to /u/Originally_Odd for helping write this as well