The Great Escape is the first collaboration album between Larry June and legendary producer The Alchemist. As expected with these two artists, this project is mostly made up of laid back and saucy rhymes, on top of equally as chill and light beats, pulled straight off of the NPC. Every song on the album plays into each other beautifully, it’s all one vibe straight through, front to back.
The features selected for The Great Escape are choice as well. For example, no emcees fit the vibe of this album, outside of Larry June himself, better than Action Bronson, who’s eloquently featured on the song “Solid Plan.” The track immediately following, “Palisades, CA” featuring Big Sean, accomplishes the same feat, and Sean absolutely murders his verse. These three artists in particular are just masters of slowly saying really cool things. Tons of legends and notable artists like Joey Bada$$, Curren$y, Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla $ign are featured on this joint, and they all understood the assignment.
Larry June makes it a point to preach betting on yourself, living life legally and fruitfully, and promotes being a good father, investing in assets, and paying your taxes. These are all messages that are lacking in today’s music, especially Hip-Hop. You can be a good person and still be a boss in this life, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Respect to June for using his platform to take a moment and drop important and non-self indulgent bars. Also, it should be noted, there is very minimal egregious cursing if any at all throughout the project.
Whether that was conscious or not is unknown to me, but it demonstrates a certain level of discipline from rappers that I respect. Overall, The Great Escape has a chill, vibrant, summer feel to it, and I think this album was released at the perfect time to accentuate its wave. This entire project will be in my rotation over the next few summer months for sure.
