West-London rapper Fredo blessed us with his second studio album back on January 29th. Tagging along for the entirety of the project is the offensively talented rapper, producer, actor and piano man, Dave. It isn’t exactly a joint album in the vein of something like Future’s joint albums with Young Thug or Lil Uzi Vert. Instead, Dave lends his keen ear for production and his talents on the keys, acting as executive producer for Money Can’t Buy Happiness.
Clocking in at just over 40 minutes and 11 tracks, Fredo wisely dodges the pitfalls of releasing a bloated, focus-grouped album that tries to juggle too many styles in a grasp at mass appeal. Maybe this is where Dave played a key roll; In keeping the album as focused as possible. With a concept record of his own under his belt in Psychodrama, this would make sense. Regardless, the two artists have a pretty close relationship and their ability to seamlessly work together is on full display throughout the entire track list; With Dave’s keys acting as an ever-present foil to Fredo’s cutting, matter-of-fact delivery.
Throughout, Fredo focuses on his own personal experiences with fame, loss, prison, death, and his love-hate relationship with the streets. Because of this heavy lyrical focus, we end up getting a relatively complete portrait of Fredo as a human being; As someone who is clearly more than just a gang member or a rapper. He’s a father now. He’s someone who is intensely loyal to those around him. And he’s also someone who is clearly overwhelmed with trauma and pain that extends directly from the countless friends he has lost to the streets. Some of this pain comes directly from losing two of his good friends in 2020, Billy and Muscle.
Fredo kicks off the album calmly rapping over some of Dave’s forlorned keys, on the stunning “Biggest Mistake”. The entire track comes off as an emotional recollection of very specific events that have occurred throughout his life, acting as a great introduction to many of the major themes that will run throughout the album. He likens his progression in life and as an artist to the accomplishments he accrued on the streets. He raps “I still remember the first wetting/ Filled with hype and adrenaline/ Gave the yout a little leggin’/ Next time was a face shot, progression, he raps, explaining how he became more and more aggressive on the streets, while at the same time showing that he has a habit of improving and honing his skills over time.
He then goes on to detail how his parents were separated, how he first got introduced to the streets, eventually stopped going to school, was sent away by his mom, and then was brought back to the city of London. His mom thought the city was great, because it’s where she’s found her success, but did not understand exactly what her son was getting into at the time. Fredo begins to touch on this unending draw to go back to his street life, despite his clear understanding of the dangers it holds.. And yet, despite all of his friends that are currently in prison or dead, and all of the pain he’s felt because of that lifestyle, he just can’t shake it. It’s a wonderful opening track, and it’s extremely commendable to see any artist just completely bare their soul and pain like he does here.
This leads into “Back to Basics,” which reflects that he mainly addresses the street life and run ins with opps. Dave provides just a gorgeous instrumental here, fleshed out with some haunting vocal samples and mournful synth passages. It’s a well rounded and robust beat, giving Fredo a perfect platform to rap with his typical cool and composed style. He’s still shocked out how much money he’s made simply due to the songs he’s recorded, but it’s a great situation since he unabashedly loves his money, jewelry and designer clothes.
Another great example of Fredo expressing how things have changed for him, he raps, “My girl got a good brain, you know her mind’s the sickest/ But at the same time, she won’t ever mind her business.” These two relatively simply lines have a good amount of meaning packed into them. The first being the obvious brain/oral sex reference, but at the same time, it reflects the type of women he has the pleasure of being with now. He’s around people and women who are intelligent and always willing to work on their business, which are maybe, let’s say, a bit more “legitimate” than what Fredo is used to. While this is generally a positive, she’s smart and won’t just sit idly by as Fredo tried to work on his “business,” which revolves around drugs and violence. It’s an interesting way to show the positives and negatives that come with such great success, while continuing to struggle to move past his previous life.
“Spaghetti,” whose title and first line of the chorus are in reference to one of Fredo’s rather absurd and hilarious moments on Instagram, falls into a similar vein as “Back to Basics.” He boasts about how he put his hood, Harrow Road, on the map, and deftly moves back and forth between bragging about his game with the ladies and his penchant for violence when it comes to dealing with his opps. “Pull up on her, I bet that she ready/ She ready, course/ Runnin’ it like a sport/ Smokin’ your bro, he’s a corpse/ You know that we winning for sure,” Fredo raps over some more of Dave’s expert piano playing, accompanied by some booming bass. The lines later reference the WWE programs Smackdown and Raw are nice touches, and there are plenty of smooth little bits of wordplay sprinkled throughout the entire track.
“Ready,” features rising American star Summer Walker, and is much more propulsive and high energy than the previous tracks. There is an undeniable bounce to the instrumental and both artist’s performances. Here we see Fredo express some regret and more understanding about all of the mistakes he’s made. He touches more specifically on friends that have been killed or ones that currently find themselves behind bars. “We got straps in them flats that hold army rounds/ My n****** movin‘ like them vets, we but your doggies down/ Billy died but I’ve been sleepin‘ better/ And that’s ever since a opp went to sleep forever,” he raps, before later mentioning that he’ll always love Billy for paying the ultimate price to get revenge after another one of their friends was killed. He even goes as far to say that he would never get rid of Billy’s gun; He’d rather frame it and display it in his memory.
In the second verse of that track, we get one of the best instances in which Fredo contrasts his former and current lifestyles:
“Court buses with them chains on me
To tour buses with them chains on me
The way I was isn’t the way to be
They won’t listen, gotta make ’em see (See)
Now my flows hit harder, call them waves at sea”
Dave finally grabs a mic and makes his only verbal appearance on “Money Talks.” It’s their third collaboration, following up the stellar 2018 “Funky Friday,” which made history by becoming the first British rap song to ever reach number 1 in the UK charts. This newest track from the duo features both rappers questioning why all of these other rappers have the balls to talk about them despite the fact that their opp’s bank accounts are like a child’s piggy banks compared to Dave and Fredo’s. Admittedly, I don’t think this hits the anthemic heights of “Funky Friday,” but coupled with the amazing music video, it’s a very solid track with some nice wordplay and punchlines. Fredo uses Amazon Prime as an equivalent for how fast he and his boys move on their opps, and jokes that he cooks more soda than Keenan and Kel ever had.
Dave gives a somewhat subdued verse, but still gives some impressive lines. Hearing him boast that he flies out of Heathrow more than some guys hit the gas station his hilarious, and he even admits to getting robbed when he was younger. Because of this, he still makes sure to carry a knife on him due to the paranoia he still holds. He then refers to the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops, explaining that he and his boys had “Zombies” way before the game came out. For reference, Zombies are a style of blade that are no longer legal to have or make in the UK.
Dave finishes this verse up with some of the best, and yet simple wordplay in his entire verse: “Spooky bando/ This T eerie, no Henry.” He ties the spooky reference into the previous Zombies line in order to describe the “T-House” or trap house, that they frequented. Typically, they can be run down or abandoned, giving them an imposing and uneasy quality. But the way he pronounces it all, it sounds like “Thierry Henry,” who is a former Arsenal football player. Henry isn’t pronounced like us Americans typically word, because he’s French, so it fits the rhyme perfectly. Just listen to it, and make sure to enjoy the robust piano work that Dave flexes right as the track closes out. And pay attention to the music video, it’s a literal movie that reflects the link between the road, rap, and how money cannot be the sole route of one’s happiness. I’ve also read that the video itself was shot in reverse. Fucking wild.
“Do You Right,” see’s Fredo try his hand at the auto-tuned trap sound, and while it isn’t my favorite track here, his voice actually fits this style pretty well. It’s a little less substantive, keeping the subject matter a little bit more shallow. He mainly raps and sings about his sexual prowess and how he tends to treat women, which is a combination of spoiling them and ditching them when he gets bored. Overall, the flute melody is a nice compliment to the melodies that Fredo pulls together here, and the chorus is solid too. I do have a feeling that in the long run, this one could grow on me, or could become a somewhat often skip when I come back to the album.
“Burner on Deck,” acts as a perfect mid album track, where we get performances from Auto-Tune Commander-in-Chief Young Adz and the late, great Pop Smoke. The three artists pull together a chorus that is full of chemistry and bravado. There aren’t a ton of standout singular lines, but it all just works. I will say too, it is just a treat to hear Pop’s voice again, and maybe it’s just due to his passing, but the keys that are layered over the final iteration of the chorus is legitimately beautiful. Man, all of the amazing work Pop could’ve done with UK artists is insane. By all accounts, he had a great amount of respect and love for the UK scene, which was reciprocated. RIP Pop Smoke.
On “I Miss,” Fredo lists off a lot of specific things he misses: cheap guns, dealing drugs, spending long nights out on the streets, and all of the friends he’s lost. There is another great piano melody here, and we do get more instances of Fredo wondering that if he does leave the streets, where he knows all of his friends are loyal and ready to die for him, who exactly can he count on?
“Blood in My Eyes,” follows a similar blueprint of vulnerability and openness that the opening track did. We see Fredo address a whole host of topics, like his deal with Sony, getting backstabbed, becoming a father, his rocky relationship with his daughter’s mother, and the constant pain he is always carrying with him. He can clean the blood off of his knife, but he can’t take the blood out of his eyes. He’s seen and done things that will always stick with him. Here are few bars get right back to the heart of the album as a whole:
“It took money for me to finally see
That the best things in life are for free
I’ll give all the shit I have
Just to bring all my n***** back”
Fredo has a knack for wordplay and metaphor’s but lines like this, and ones all throughout this track specifically really show him at his best. This is when he is fully vulnerable and unafraid to open his chest up and personally hand his heart to the listener. You can tell it’s almost like a relief that he can finally find the words to talk about all of these experiences and feelings he’s used to keeping inside. It really does mirror Dave’s Psychodrama, which was an obvious reflection of a therapy session. This may not be as direct as an album in that sense that it’s a therapy session, but the therapeutic release is tangible. Even if he does use a relatively similar flow and cadence throughout, there are many minor instances in which his emotion his clear. He doesn’t need for his voice to crack or to sound of the verge of tears, overwhelmed by sadness or aggression, for you to really feel every word he says.
Fredo continues to detail his past as a drug dealer, which included young, dumb moves like refusing to saw the barrel of his shotgun down to make it easier to conceal, as well as selling off a gun that was used in a hit. Fredo’s words are punchy, despite how easy the seem to just flow out of him. Much of the track feels like it is going to follow a same route and perspective as many of the previous tracks, but right at the end of his last verse, we see the bit of introspection and realization that has given all of the tracks here a real weight to them:
“It’s only now I’m meetin’ different kinda people
And realisin’ we grew up ’round a different kind of evil
My auntie’s on drugs, man, she’s living by the needle
If I leave her ’round my chips, she’ll be stealing like a seagull”
It’s a classic case of realizing that despite all of the money and pride he was getting, his drug dealing was negatively affecting a ton of people, including those close to him, and specifically his aunt, who took him in when his own mom kicked him out of the house. Because of this, the cycle continues, which eventually makes it back to Fredo, where he no longer just gains from it, but realizes that he’s losing something as well. It may only be a few lines, but Fredo’s true talent lies in being able to distill a ton of emotion and experience into the most matter of fact set of bars as possible.
It’s fitting that Fredo bookended this album with the two most powerful and affecting tracks, beginning with “Biggest Mistake,” and closing it all out with “What Can I Say.” The closer acts as a tribute and reflection on his relationships with so many of his fallen or locked up friends, but more specifically with Billy and Muscle. You can tell he isn’t necessarily surprised by Billy’s death, as he comments on and commends his activity in the streets, but that doesn’t mean the pain Fredo feels after his death is any less valid. He explains how he wants to get revenge on some rival killers, all while reminiscing on the times they spent together, including their time in prison where Billy would shape up Fredo’s hair. An especially touching set of lines finds Fredo, despite the constant please to free his friends, actually admits he almost wished Billy could’ve stayed in prison for a bit longer, because as soon as he had an extended period of time back in the real world, he lost his life. Maybe that means he would’ve been able to see the daughter he had on the way.
He raps, “All them years you been in jail, you never even seen the world/ Your daughter’s ’bout to be born and you’ll never get to see your girl/ I just turned a father, so it hit me a lil’ harder,” before finishing that verse to Billy with “Finally done a year free and now I kinda wish you didn’t.”
Fredo’s verse to Muscle isn’t any less emotional and powerful. He jokes about how Muscle couldn’t handle his weed when they were younger, and reminisces on some of the good times they shared, as he did with Billy. He admits that when Muscle died, Fredo and his guys kept his trap phone alive, with the understanding that for every $1,000 they made, they would send back $500 directly to Muscle’s family. Despite this, it’s still hard for Fredo: “And right now, it’s so hard just to look at your youts/ ‘Cause lookin’ at them’s like lookin’ at you, I can’t do it,” he admits.
He goes on to detail how he thought that Muscle knew prison time was inevitable; A foregone conclusion. And yet, just as it was a double edged sword for Billy to gain his freedom, because it meant being back in the streets and the line of fire, Fredo is happy that Muscle never had to do time. But that comes with the unfortunate bit of information that this is only true because he passed away in that car accident, which tainted Fredo’s ability to truly celebrate become a father himself:
“And bro just got nicked with a stick and a girl
We thought that it was real luck when they was givin’ you bail
But they couldn’t prove if the stick was his or the girl’s
But Muscle knew that in due time, he’s hittin’ them cells
Well, I guess not, I’m bittersweet
Lost my n****, had my daughter in a flippin’ week
How you go from being here and now you’re history?
Yo, this thing we call life is a mystery”
He finishes the verse off in a similar way to Billy’s where he laments the fact that they all where always there for each other; When someone was in jail, in trouble, in the trap house, wherever. And yet, now the one time Fredo can visit them is at the graveyard. The amount of names he goes on to list at the end, of those that are either dead or in jail, is absolutely staggering and heart breaking. By the end of this song, you get the feeling that none of this was therapeutic in the sense that the pain has been released and taken care of. You feel like he’s simply become overwhelmed and can’t even bring himself to talk anymore. He’s exhausted but he weight of all this loss and despair.
Despite all of the positives he includes in this, and most, of his tracks, you get the feeling that he is really starting to understand just how powerful these negative experiences are, and that they will always have a powerful effect on him. He’ll always have blood in his eyes and despite being able to experience the fleeting moments of happiness that come with his fame and money, none of that changes all of the shit he’s been through and all of the loved ones that he’s lost.
Fredo really puts it all together on Money Can’t Buy Happiness. His ability to spread his arms and really pull you into his personal story is on full display here. He has never been so raw and open, while at the same time allowing room into his ever-growing spotlight for those that he’s lost. His bars are tight and he sounds as cool as ever when he’s bragging about his success. He always sounds comfortable, which is even more impressive when you start to dig more into all of the pain that just oozes out of every single track here. Over the 11 tracks here, Fredo does a perfect job of illustrating the title of the album to be true, at least based on his experiences. It may not buy happiness or bring any of his loved ones back, but I hope he continues to make a whole hell of a lot of it. If he keeps producing music like this, I’m sure that won’t be an issue.