Album Of The Week: Maxo Kream Personificiation

A couple of weeks before Tyler, The Creator kicked off the abbreviated rollout for his new blockbuster Chromakopia, we got the throat-clearing. Tyler produced and rapped on “Cracc Era,” a single from the Houston underground rap fixture Maxo Kream. It wasn’t the first time that Tyler showed up on a Maxo record; he did the same on “Big Persona,” one of the singles from Maxo’s 2021 album The Weight Of The World. On paper, they make an odd pair — the eccentric Los Angeles superstar with the guttural, gang-affiliated Texan street storyteller. Chalk it up to real recognizing real. Whenever those two raspy-voiced rappers appear on a track together, they become a two-man whirlwind of shit-talk. They speak a common language, and they speak it better than almost anyone.

For Maxo Kream, “Cracc Era” was one more single in a long blitz of them. In the three years since The Weight Of The World, Maxo Kream hasn’t sat still. He’s dropped individual tracks that zag in many directions — fired-up gun threats, horny club exhortations, self-lacerating internal monologues about loss. Some of those singles appear on Maxo’s new album Personification; many do not. Compared to much of Maxo’s recent output, “Cracc Era” sounds effortless, almost tossed-off, but it’s got more of the breakneck lyricism that Maxo has absolutely mastered. In the context of Personification the lurching Tyler beat on “Cracc Era” sounds a bit leftfield, but it still works within the whole of the record. That’s how Maxo Kream operates. He can rap on anything, and it’ll still sound like him. Personification might as well be a dump of 15 randomly chosen and sequenced tracks from Maxo’s recent files; it would still play as a cohesive album.

Presumably, Personification is not a dump of 15 randomly chosen and sequenced tracks from Maxo’s recent files. Maxo is releasing the album on his own label after a recent major-label stint at RCA, so he was free to craft the record’s narrative however he wanted. He left plenty of great songs off the LP’s tracklist, and there must’ve been purpose behind those decisions. On the Personification cover art, Maxo looks at a triptych of his own personas — the grinning party guy, the doting father, the scowling goon. That cover suggests a divided soul, a code-switcher losing track of his essential self. But the beautiful thing is that Maxo Kream has the rare ability to be all three of those guys, and more, in the space of one song — sometimes even just one line.

Personification follows a period of unrest and tragedy for Maxo Kream, but the same could be true of any of his albums. Maxo comes from rough circumstances. He’s got lots of trauma to unpack, lots of loved ones to mourn. On The Weight Of The World, Maxo dealt with the loss of his brother and the imprisonment of his father. On Personification, Maxo continues to wrestle with those experiences while also processing his father’s death and his own recent RICO case, as well as assorted betrayals that he outlines without naming names. But amidst all that serious business, Maxo still makes sure to cut loose, to have fun rapping.

Some of that joy is merely in the way Maxo Kream puts words together, even when he’s dealing with hard memories. “Big Hoe Me,” one of the few singles that made it onto Personification, admonishes a deceitful street father figure who put Maxo into dangerous, violent situations when he was still a kid and who seemingly didn’t uphold his end of the unspoken bargain. That’s not a fun thing to talk about, but Maxo makes it compelling through the vivid force of his language. In outlining the situation, Maxo tells a story about a long-ago gunfight, and he brings an economical, breathless crime-paperback narrative gift to the proceedings: “Hop out on foot patrol/ Creepin’ through the cars, I keep my pivot low/ Ratchet tote, use the traffic pole as a pick-and-roll.”

It keeps happening. Maxo Kream says something fucked-up, and he says it with such force and style that the language itself reaches out and grabs you by the ear. Here’s Maxo on his relationship with his creator: “Switched my Bibles out for rifles, ain’t talked to God in a while/ Every time I call him on that FaceTime, he press decline.” Maxo on his childhood exploits: “I been selling crack since GoldenEye, Nintendo 64/ I been selling crack since Pokémon cards and Yu-Gi-Oh.” Maxo on the way that a young man can get trapped in the gang world for life: “You join the street fraternity, you down for eternity/ Have your cuz drippin’ blood in the mud ’til it’s burgundy.” Even in his standard murder warnings, Maxo brings a shade of deep regret but still makes you scrunch up your face and how hard it sounds: “Don’t give a fuck about a pastor, God forgives and I don’t/ They say Black lives matter, well my Black opps don’t.”

None of this is new. If you’ve kept up with Maxo Kream for the past decade or so, you’ve heard him deliver hundreds of bars just as powerful as that, all growled out in a husky voice that adapts to any rap circumstance. Maxo Kream doesn’t pull attention-grabbing hijinks, and he doesn’t push an operatic narrative or a market-tested aesthetic. Instead, he just raps, staying honest without worrying about trends or branding. He’s not obscure, but he doesn’t come up in many conversations about the best rappers working today. When you really sit with his music, though, you might realize that he’s amassed an absolutely bulletproof catalog. Every Maxo Kream song has a line or two with the power to knock you sideways, even if you don’t always catch it the first time you listen.

Maxo might be out of the major-label world now, but there’s no real adjustment on Personification. He’s still got the presence to command collaborations with big-name peers, and he’s got the taste to know which ones to bring into his circle. On this album, that means he links up with underground all-stars like Denzel Curry, Rob49, and Skilla Baby, all of whom are able to match his energy. Maxo also teams with the newer street-level stars who have come out of Texas in recent years, and it’s a blast to hear him trade bluesy snarls with BigXThaPlug on “Smokey” and double-time punchlines with That Mexican OT on “Talkin In Screw.” Still, the most poignant guest-spot might be Maxo’s brother Josh Kream, who drops by on the gospel-infused “Walk By Faith” to say that “religion is bullshit.” That hardness must run in the family.

Musically, Personification is rooted in classic rap sounds, from the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony sample on album opener “Mo Murda” on down. There are detours in there, and the detours make sense. Maxo sounds perfectly at home rapping over Tyler, The Creator’s clanking Neptunes pastiche on “Cracc Era.” That song has a line where Tyler mentions watching Juno in his car, so maybe it’s appropriate that another song flips the Garden State soundtrack. Maybe those guys bonded over mid-’00s twee cinema. (I’m not saying which song has which sample; figure it out yourself.) When a producer like Evilgiane hits Maxo with his blurry, mutated drill style, Maxo never struggles to find the pocket.

But Maxo Kream isn’t the kind of rapper who wants to expand the genre’s sonic identity. Even when he reaches outside his lane, he never changes his approach. When he gets ahold of a classic slow-crawl Houston rap beat, he goes just as crazy. If Maxo were ever to make a grand-statement album, a full-length excursion with a visionary producer like Tyler, he could probably put together an all-time classic. But every rapper doesn’t have to work like that. On Personification, Maxo’s not a novelist; he’s a short story writer. On these 15 songs, he twists his voice in different directions and throws it into different contexts, and he continues to crush everything. There’s not one song on this album worth skipping. There might not be one song in Maxo’s entire discography worth skipping. Maybe someday, the wider world will acknowledge Maxo Kream as one of the greats. Until then, if you know, you know.

Personification is out 11/15 on Stomp Down.

Other albums of note out this week:

• 070 Shake’s Petrichor
• Young Nudy & Pi’erre Bourne’s Sli’merre 2
• Straw Man Army’s Earth Works
• Wussy’s Cincinnati Ohio
• Linkin Park’s From Zero
• Cordae’s The Crossroads
• Elvis Costello & T Bone Burnett’s The Coward Brothers
• FLO’s Access All Areas
• Full Of Hell & Andrew Nolan’s
Scraping The Divine
• Deadbody & Tribal Gaze’s split LP
• Rauw Alejandro’s Cosa Nuestra
• Cordae’s The Crossroads
• Dolly Parton & Family’s Smoky Mountain DNA – Family, Faith & Fables
• Michael Kiwanuka’s Floating Parade
• Xeno & Oaklander’s Via Negativa (in the doorway light)
• Bubble Love’s (Ross From Friends) Bubble Love
• Silkroad Ensemble & Rhiannon Giddens’ American Railroad
• Dwight Yoakam’s Brighter Days
• Poppy’s Negative Spaces
• Adrian Younge’s Adrian Younge Presents Linear Labs: Sao Paulo
• Euphoria Again’s Waiting On Time To Fly
• Mile End’s Mile End
• Blake Lee’s No Sound In Space
• SOLAK’s Atlas
• Warmduscher’s Too Cold To Hold
• Modem’s Megalomania
• Becky And The Birds’ Only Music Makes Me Cry Now
• Heart To Gold’s Free Help
• LAU’s Digital Dream
• Jagged Baptist Club’s Physical Surveillance
• HOMER’s Ensatina
• Wallice’s The Jester
• sm^sher’s Pit Of Mine
• Fazerdaze’s Soft Power
• Murcof’s Twin Color Vol.1
• Lunar Noon’s A Circle’s Round
• The Green Child’s Look Familiar
• Kylie V’s Crash Test Plane
• Vlad Holiday’s My Favorite Drug
• Stranger Cat’s Slow Jam Love Letters To My Body In Pieces
• Ross Goldstein’s Blunders
• Amber Martin’s Unbreakable Heart
• Dorothea Paas’ Think Of Mist
• Human Potential’s I Write Wedding Songs
• Sofie Royer’s Young-Girl Forever
• American Thrills’ Milestone
• Elori Saxl’s Earth Focus
• Las Palabras’ Fe
• Primal Code’s Opaque Fixation
• ganavya’s Daughter Of A Temple
• Dennis Bovell’s Sufferer Sounds
• Earthen Sea’s Recollection
• Letdown.’s Be Ok.
• The Spyrals’ RETROGRADE
• Cat Cohen’s Overdressed
• Frances Whitney’s Old Hobbies
• Some Days Are Darker’s TV-MA
• Stranger Cat’s Slow Jam Love Letters To My Body In Pieces
• Hank Heaven’s Loaded Dice
• Dose Of Adolescence’s Zircon Ave.
• Abdullah Miniawy’s Nigma Enigma أنيجم النَجم
• St. Vincent’s Todos Nacen Gritando
• Gwen Stefani’s Bouquet
• Shawn Mendes’ Shawn
• ENHYPEN’s ROMANCE : UNTOLD -daydream-
• Jon Batiste’s Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1)
• Tinariwen’s Idrache (Traces Of The Past)
• TV On The Radio’s Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (20th Anniversary Edition)
• MF DOOM’s MM..FOOD (20th Anniversary Edition)
• George Harrison’s Living In The Material World (50th Anniversary Edition)
• The Saints’ (I’m) Stranded box set
• Bryan Adams’ Live At The Royal Albert Hall 2024 box set
• Major Lazer’s Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do (15th Anniversary Deluxe Reissue)
• Denzel Curry’s King Of The Mischievous South (Expanded)
• The Black Keys’ Ohio Players (Trophy Edition)
• Erick The Architect’s I’ve Never Been Here Before (Deluxe)
• Nickelback’s Nickelback: Live From Nashville live album
• The Red Clay Strays’ Live At The Ryman live album
• anaiis’ anaiis & Grupo Cosmo mini-album
• Secret World‘s Guilt Is Good EP
• Bayway’s Bayway Takes Manhattan EP
• Chelsea Wolfe’s Unbound EP
• Mammoth Grinder’s Undying Spectral Resonance EP
• Gordi & SOAK’s Lunch At Dune EP
• Koyo’s Mile A Minute EP
• Yola’s My Way EP
• Morpho’s Morpho Season EP
• Anthony Raneri’s Everyday Royalty EP
• Vera Sola’s The Ghostmaster’s Daughter EP
• Fischer King’s Rough Odds EP
• Don Kapot’s Remedy EP
• Jei-Rynn’s viole(n)t dreams EP
• Glosser’s Angel Dust EP
• Emei’s Rabbithole EP
• Helena Hauff’s Multiply Your Absurdities EP
• Florence Rose’s My Lust Is My Religion EP
• Taylor Deupree’s Ash EP
• Medium Build’s Marietta EP
• Less Than Jake’s Uncharted EP
• K.Flay’s I’m Making Friends With The Silence EP
• The Brook & The Bluff’s This Could All Go Nowhere EP
• Frances Whitney’s Old Hobbies EP
• Ehiorobo & Icarus Moth’s Mutamelior EP
• Thrown Into Exile’s Passageways EP
• Don Kapot’s Remedy EP
• Poem Rocket’s Lend-Lease EP
• Waylon Wyatt’s Til The Sun Goes Down EP (Deluxe)
• Mason Ramsey’s Merry Christmas Baby EP