Edgewood

Trouble was 23 when he broke out in 2011 with “Bussin,’” a gun anthem intense enough to spark nightmares. The video, with its close-ups of back tattoos, war-grade weaponry, and stone-faced gangsters, feels like an A&E drama condensed into a compact three-minute song. It’s the type of clip you watch once and never forget. Since then, Trouble has been popping up on tracks with Young Thug and Gucci Mane, releasing occasional mixtapes, and generally buzzing around the edges of his city’s explosive rap scene. At times, it’s felt like his music career has been secondary to the broader project of his larger-than-life persona.

Edgewood, Trouble’s long-coming debut, is a reminder of what a compelling narrator he remains. Named for the Atlanta projects where he grew up, and executive produced by Mike WiLL Made-It, this album is an unsparing chronicle of Trouble’s come-up. Cohesive and gothic, and flaunting some of the most effective, layered production of Mike WiLL’s career, Edgewood takes the over-excited hyper-realism of “Bussin’” and ages it like whiskey, giving life to a smoky, sinister, and polished image of Trouble as a seen-it-all Atlanta godfather.

Signing to Mike WiLL’s label, as Trouble did this year, brings a few obvious benefits. Edgewood flaunts guest spots from Fetty Wap, Quavo, the Weeknd, and Drake; polished artwork and promo materials; and flawless mixing that provides pockets for Trouble’s swirling southern drawl to move around in. Throughout, his perspective remains sharp. He is jaded and cautious, snarling and dismissive. “Try to tell my young’n stiffen up, he trust niggas/Been burned by that bullet, I know not to trust niggas,” he spits on the standout opening track, “Real is Rare (Edgewood) / The Woods,” and you can almost see him shaking his head. He doles out advice in every verse, and he recounts past capers with chilling composure. On “Bussin,’” he was barking in self-defense in the face of imminent war. On Edgewood, the battle is over, and he’s assessing the damage.

Edgewood is as much Mike WiLL’s album as it is Trouble’s. The beats here are part haunted house, part trap opera, and part Atlanta rap history lesson, going back to the melodic bounce of D4L on “Selfish” and the moaning menace of pre-prison Gucci Mane on “Knock it Down.” Mike WiLL is an exceptional crafter of pop-rap, as evidenced by Rae Sremmurd’s success, but on Edgewood, he gleefully returns to the gloomy, menacing sound that broke him into the industry.

“Pull Dat Cash Out” blends the sound of a woman’s distorted voice with ATLiens-era OutKast synth work, while on the surprisingly engrossing Weeknd collaboration “Come Thru,” Mike WiLL breaks out jack-in-the-box keys and infuses them with a bass-heavy bounce—letting Trouble spit-off one liners (“I was duckin’ bullets, shootouts, me and my guys design your porch”) and giving room for the Weeknd to land some House of Balloons-era vocal runs. Mike WiLL’s value as an executive producer lies in the fact that he pushes Trouble only to the edges of his comfort zone. Throughout, he prioritizes the album’s cohesiveness and sound over breaking Trouble into the mainstream. Even the big name collaborations—the somewhat limp Quavo and Fetty Wap feature “Rider” and the mostly-successful, abrasive Drake cut “Bring it Back”—work in service of the whole project.

Edgewood documents its Atlanta underworld with immersive, almost suffocating realism: the various skits throughout the album detail the minutiae of trap life, capturing iPhone clicks, voicemails, stray gunshots, and music playing next door. Trouble’s tales of trap life are nothing new to the Atlanta rap canon, but while classics like Jeezy’s Let’s Get It: Thug Motivation: 101 toasted the act of hustling one’s way out of the trap (“I used to hit the kitchen lights, cockroaches everywhere/Hit the kitchen lights, now it’s marble floors, everywhere!”), Edgewood finds Trouble stubbornly staying put. “How could you blame it?/It’s all I done seen runnin’ around wit my crew,” he muses on “Krew / Time Afta Time, “ but he needs no one else’s approval. This is a judgment-free account of life in an overlooked, liminal space, and its tone is neither celebratory nor mournful. Rather, it’s a cryptic affirmation of an old adage: Sometimes, everything you need is already in front of you.