G. Twilight is a surprising and powerful voice in the dark abyss that is Detroit’s underworld. He tales captivating stories about his experiences as a mid-level weight dealer, accomplished thief, and procurer at the beginning of the 2010’s. Polishing up his stupidity, misogynoir, and homophobia with phony street glamour, telling tales of street glory with crazy back-stories, villains, victims and anti-heroes on the Westside of Detroit, MI. He paints beautiful murals with ugly paint. We accidently discovered the artist through a Twitter post which led us down the rabbit hole that is his gangster madness. We then interviewed him and now we are digging through his archives and finding gems. On his first official mixtape from 2012 “College Boy Turned TrapStar” the rapper unravels his pedigree and invites us into a world of ill gotten luxury, accompanied with sudden and unexpected violence. With quiet charisma and charm, Twilight subtly blends the genius of Kanye with the motivation of Young Jeezy, while using a Snoop Dogg-ish type flow, but somehow makes it work.

The mixtape begins with an excerpt from the  a 1972 American crime film ‘The Godfather’ in which James Caan as ‘Santino Corleone’ rants “Hey, whataya gonna do, nice college boy, eh? Didn’t want to get mixed up in the Family business, huh? Now you wanna gun down a police captain. Why? Because he slapped ya in the face a little bit? Hah? What do you think this is the Army, where you shoot ’em a mile away? You’ve gotta get up close like this and bada-bing!.. you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.” Without much notice, the electric guitar heavy title track begins to thump out of the speakers as ‘G.’ opens up with how his life got thrown completely off track. Within the first we learn that he attended Central Michigan University after graduating from Detroit Northern High School graduating with a 3.5 grade point average. The rapper then goes off into a side story, which seemed a bit irrelevant at first, about ‘The Miss Black and Gold Scholarship Pageant’ hosted by the local chapter of ‘Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.’ However the as the story unfolds the local chapter of Phi Eta Psi, which from what we understood in this context was another fraternity on campus that didn’t have the respect of other Black Greek organizations, starts a fight at the after party for the event. Twilight states that he was getting ready to go to the event but the chaos broke out before he could make it and expresses his disappointment.

From the fight that broke out at the end of the first verse, to the gossiping and jealousy that was going on, from his perspective, this is just like being in the hood (even though it shouldn’t be). The rapper then comes back to the Detroit area and enrolls at the local community college where he met an older guy in an introductory business class who later becomes his drug connection. However, Twilight doesn’t act on this new business venture right away, but instead is looking for a job.

By the third verse though, it looks like ‘G.’ has dove in head first into the street life and is now somewhat expressing regret. Now fully engrossed he looks back and remembers the time he wanted to pledge the Lambda Gamma chapter of ‘Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.’ as he does he day-today drug sales and wonders to himself “What happed to me?”. The rapper also fills us in on a few steps that were missed before, building blocks to how he got where he currently is. Apparently after not finding a job he started pirating movies and music. One hustle leads to another as he expands to the sell of marijuana. The money from the marijuana isn’t enough so he then dabbles with dealing prescription pills at the height of the opium crisis, which then leads him to deal the hardest of the hardest narcotics.. crack-cocaine and heroin. He’s gotten so deep into the game he no longer recognizes himself.

The majority of songs after this are colorful, with excellent production, but at best they’re fillers, full of typical urban macho bravado of trap music. The “New Joe Kennedy” song however, ‘G.’ reveals that there is a method to his madness. Instead of hustling to buy gaudy flash to show off in hopes of making rivals jealous or perhaps attracting women for sexual adventure, he shares aspirations to use his ill gotten gains to expand into political endeavors. ‘G.’, obviously is a history buff, compares himself to Joseph P. Kennedy, father of slain U.S. President, John F. Kennedy. It is rumored that, through his connections with Irish mobster, Owney Madden, Sicilian-born Mafiosí, Joseph Bonanno and Frank Costello, and Jewish syndicate leaders, Myer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, the Kennedy patriarch bought the presidency for his son, J.F.K. and launched the political careers of many junior members of his family.. with fortunes made during Prohibition. Within the confines of this song ‘G.’ expresses employing highly motivated, extremely aggressive, go-getter tactics to get what he wants and makes it clear that he will crush anyone who has plans of getting in his way.

Another favorite of ours is the song “If You’s A Gangsta“. This one definitely has a fun grove and gives further depth to the artist on a personal level. On this song he says: “I’m tied of these fake diamonds, want a real Rolex.. tied of datin’ this girl who don’t wanna gimme no sex” and “Trynna talk the connect into givin’ me a bird”. These words hint at his ever-growing ambition and also that there may be another reason for his involvement in the streets. This is further discussed later on in the song “7 Mile Beef” with the line “Three long years of Lil’ Mama’s complaints”. However, assuming how it was phrased, ‘G.’ was probably talking about a different woman.

Something else, that wasn’t expected, was a brief glimpse of Twilight’s disdain for the Black church on the song “Bounce, Rock, RollerSkate“. In the song, ‘G.’ spews more of his hustler rhetoric, but the vibe has more of a party/dance feel to it. In a sense it feels like he picked the wrong beat all while make it work beautifully. In the midst of his gangster fluff Twilight drops a lug on us with the line “Bishop Andrew Merritt got smacked in his own pulpit”. Prior to hearing this we had no idea who this Detroit-area preacher is or what he may have done to be attacked, but the visual of such a ludicrous event is enough to induce laughter.

Overall, this was an amazing project.. written with great style and elegance for a story so ugly, raw and disheartening. It must be noted though, this project is not for overly sensitive people. If you’re not interested in this genre of rap music or if you get offended easily, then this mixtape may not be for you. We however think G. Twilight is a very talented writer who we believe may one day be a great author of urban literature.