17.5 Thoughts On Young Jeezy’s New Album 'Seen It All'

Young Jeezy showed up to his album listening party for Seen it All Thursday night like a politician ready to press flesh. He smiled wide and shook everybody’s hand, trailed by cameras. Had someone handed him a baby, he surely would have kissed it. We were in Jungle City Studios for a listening session for Seen It All, his overdue upcoming album, out September 2. Here are 17.5 thoughts on Mr. 17.5's latest project.

1. Jeezy seems really excited about Seen It All . As he narrated the album, he enthusiastically introduced every song with notes and stories, joked with the crowd and answered all questions. Given that he aired out Def Jam very recently on “Me OK,” I like to think his happiness with his new project made the delays all the more frustrating. Either that or Jeezy came with the extra charm to smooth over the differences – kind of a chicken and egg situation.

2. It’s crazy for me to think about Young Jeezy having been a factor for long enough to make an album called Seen It All but actually Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 turns nine years old in a couple weeks. Very few rappers have managed to stay as flexible and relevant as Jeezy over his long career. Say what you will about dude, he has a knack for adapting without compromising his sound.

3. That said, Seen It All is some of his most positive and thoughtful work. He’s long-since shed the brash bullying persona and grown into something of a world-weary pragmatist. On the new album, he sounds like an elder statesman.

4. For example, the Mike WiLL Made It-produced “4 Zones” is named for the minimum amount of weight a good hustler needs to get back on his feet. No matter how much you fall off, if you can get 4 ounces of cocaine, you can at least get back to a stable position.

5. Jeezy explained the “4 Zones” logic in a blinding flurry of trap jargon. He’s clearly put a lot of thought into this number.

6. When asked about the Auto-Tune tinges on the track, Jizzle is quick to clarify: “Don’t say Auto-Tune, that’s just me being melodic.” Noted!

7. Later Jeezy described his life as a series of peaks and valleys, and presented the sample-driven "Beautiful" as a song about the peaks. Game shows up for a guest verse and drops the name of somewhat obscure Atlanta rapper Camoflauge, shot to death in 2003.

8. Seen It All still has its fair share of what Jizzle described as “that trap talk”. He closed out the session with “Quarter Block,” on which he claims to whip crack like “crème brûlée.” There were whispers about an anticipated Rick Ross verse but it did not materialise.

9. My favorite track of the night was the similarly hard “Black Eskimo,” mostly because it makes me picture what the frowning Snow Man logo from 2005 would evolve into if it was a Pokemon. (The Snow Man is named “AYEE.” The Black Eskimo is named “DAYUMN.”)

10. "No Tears," featuring a hook and a verse from Future, stood out not only because he played it twice but because it carries the well-worn theme of fame-related alienation. Jeezy discussed the song as a way of coming to peace with the fact that he can’t give everyone the same opportunities. It also stood out for the incredible pop Mike Will beat, featuring drums similar to the ones in “Umbrella” and ”Empire State of Mind” and a bridge that would work in a Katy Perry song.

11. That’s not a shot at Jeezy as much as it is a commentary on the vague boundaries of genre in 2014. It’s probably also Mike Will flexing some ideas gleaned from his time in Miley’s circle. This is a crossover record, and one that both Future and Jeezy would deserve.

12. We heard the Jay Z-featured title track, clearly a crowd favorite. I balked when Jeezy said he it was his favorite record he’d done with Jay, especially at it choosing it over the club-destroying “Go Crazy” remix. But he explained this by saying he felt more comfortable on “Seen It All” as both rappers were speaking from a similar place. On “Go Crazy” he was just talking his shit, which is fair.

13. The low points of the 10 new joints from Seen It All were a track with Wiz Khalifa, the name of which may or may not be “What It Sposeda Do”– nobody seemed very excited about. “Addicted” is a half-baked track about girls featuring a verse from the sad, limp robot that is T.I. in 2014.

14. On the bright side, “Addicted” is one of four tracks produced by indie hero Childish Major featuring Neptunes-esque chord progression on some very nice synths. It’s great to see the young dude getting so much shine. Jeezy said he made this beat in 15 minutes!

15. Notably absent was DJ Mustard or anything West Coast-sounding. On one hand, maybe it’s a good move in a market already very saturated with Mustard and fake Mustard production. But if anyone deserves that sound right now, it’s Jeezy who had the foresight to make “R.I.P.” long before the bandwagon was rolling and was instrumental in signing YG (and Mustard).

16. Anyways, Jeezy said he was cooking up something with Ty$, Mustard and possibly Warren G for the album. (Yes, that Warren G – he also produced “Can’t Leave You Alone,” the Ne-Yo duet from Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 103.)

17. Less notably absent are Doughboyz Cashout, the awesome Detroit collective also signed to Jeezy’s CTE label. They sound like a lost Cash Money group from 1999 and songs like “Woke Up” and “Used To Sell Dimes” are the closest thing to the bulldozing hustle of Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 in rap right now. I wasn’t really expecting them, but it would have been rad.

17.5: All music was played off a new iPod Nano. I haven’t seen an iPod in like five years and I didn’t see the color or the touchscreen until I was leaving. So I spent the whole time thinking he was playing his new album off some shit you regularly find smashed on the side of the road.

Follow Skinny and Noisey on Twitter.