Producer Bink! offers up a minimalist mid-tempo shaker on “Warm Words in a Cold World,” which teases out Future’s most elastic guest verse since Young Thug’s “Sup Mate.” Timbaland’s wailing shuffle on “The Pulitzer”-and Lyle Leduff and Don Cannon’s skipping drums on “Wiggle”-put some strategic pep in the album’s step. Thankfully, the production and guests keep things lively enough. It’s not autopilot, but we’ve seen these locales before. The sense of familiarity throughout Richer ensures that no song is bad, but there are also fewer standouts. He rarely sounds like he’s reading a list of accomplishments from a teleprompter, even when that’s exactly what he’s doing. Ross can go from smirking about owning 100 cars on “Rapper Estates” to the hushed delivery of “Marathon,” where he raps, “First I had to teach myself, then I started teaching wealth/No longer am I seeking shelter,” like a therapy patient after a critical breakthrough.

The pomp of his music can mask the overt left turns in his narratives: Take the second verse of “The Pulitzer,” which starts with a funny throwaway line (“They say that the floor is facetious/Fat boy just keep fillin’ the bleachers”), then dives into stories about friends serving prison sentences and his own habit of self-medicating with Percocet before ending in the same money pit the song started in (“Gettin’ money, it’s still Boobie gang/No colors, no flags, just let the toolie bang”). While Ross’ voice is a powerful instrument, his delivery is often more malleable than he gets credit for.

He’s still bringing you into his world, but the view is more refined, mahogany paneling and cigars in easy chairs instead of bottle service. In this way, the album is standard Ross fare-the kind he’s released since 2014’s Hood Billionaire-with a milder bite. There’s no event song or hidden adversary to put a finer point on Ross’ progress since his last album or his latest book all we get is the progress, theme music to hustle and motivate. Richer features little of the chest-thumping bravado of Teflon Don or the rap insider score-settling of Rather You Than Me.

Ross is as capable and self-aware as ever, serving familiar scenarios with a zeal largely missing from 2019’s Port of Miami 2.

Rick ross videos 2021