Yet he also reveals how his relationships with the opposite sex affect him personally. He’s capable of drawing on deep wells of emotion, reasserting his primacy as a key (if not the key) figure in post-Weezy/T-Pain/Kid Cudi melodic rap. I Never Liked You is no DS2, but it has a compositional sweep often absent from his work. Most importantly, it’s an album with layers that’s more engaging than recent fare such as 2019’s appealing yet boilerplate Future Hndrxx Presents: The Wizrd and Save Me EP and 2020’s one-two punch of desultory hive-bait, High Off Life and Pluto x Baby Pluto, the latter with Lil Uzi Vert. The opening track on I Never Liked You, “712PM,” brings his contradictions to bear.
He snaps hard with verve, offering deft lines that convey his world of Benzes, Cartier watches and threesomes amidst nods to his criminal past. “Stepped out the mud, this bitch can’t wait to tie my shoelace/Also like girls, bet this money make the bitch so gay,” he raps, illustrating a portrait of comely “try-sexual” women.
