Detroit rapper Big Sean is back with his 2024 project, “Better Me Than You.”

His last album was released back in 2020, with “Detroit 2,” which came with quite great publicity. While Big Sean has been off of the radar ever since to possibly every fan of rap, I personally am somewhat excited to hear some new music from him. With that being said, let’s see how “Better Me Than You” pans out.

First things first, how did Big Sean perform on this record? Overall, I don’t believe he did too bad. While it wasn’t anything near amazing, I do appreciate some of his verses from song to song.

There are a couple songs that I just wish he would stop talking, but this only happened those few times. With an 18-track record, this is bound to happen, so I didn’t think much of it.

I do think that Big Sean has regressed quite a bit since “Detroit 2,” which is upsetting since he did so great on that project. Besides that, there isn’t really anything to say about his performance. It wasn’t great; it wasn’t bad. I personally am not listening to a Big Sean album purely because of his vocals and rapping capabilities anyways, so I do not see a huge issue with this.

Next, the features. I rather enjoyed most of the features. Some of the most notable ones being Charlie Wilson, Gunna, Bryson Tiller and Larry June.

As per usual, whatever song Charlie Wilson lands on is automatically amplified with his vocals. He doesn’t have much runtime on the track, but whenever he is singing, it intertwines with Big Sean’s verses so well. I’m glad that they took this approach rather than wasting runtime and giving him his own verse.

Gunna does what he does best and just glides on the beat with his easy-going flow. While it’s nothing too special, it’s a welcomed addition to the tracklist for me.

Easily my favorite feature comes from the track “This N That” with Bryson Tiller. I loved his self-titled album from earlier this year, so I was bound to thoroughly enjoy his verse.

On the other hand, on the same track, Kodak Black appears at the end. I absolutely hate Kodak Black in this day and age, so I sighed at the sight of his name on the feature list for this project. Just as I feared, I hate his verse. I hate his voice. I hate his flow. I hate everything he offers to the table.

Anyways, I enjoyed Larry June’s feature. He matches Big Sean’s vibe on the track so well. It’s just like we’re hearing another Big Sean verse. I love it when feature artists can match the song’s vibe well and add on to it even more. This alone is making this track, “Million Pieces,” one of my favorites from this record.

With all of that being said, the features did mostly well on this album, only a handful being forgettable, or in Kodak Black’s case, unbearable. Overall, the features added on to the album in a positive way.

While I hate to say it, the production side of the album is not that great. For the most part, all you get is your generic trap beats. Some tracks like “Iconic,” “Million Pieces,” “Break The Cycle” and “Together Forever” are all great cuts sonically.

With “Iconic” you get a slightly rock-inspired trap instrumental with the guitar riffs scattered throughout.

“Million Pieces” being produced by legendary producer, Hit-Boy, leaves the track being one of the best sonically with its smooth and calming instrumentation.

“Break The Cycle” includes an incredible jazz/gospel instrumental with instruments like a church organ and trumpets laid all throughout the song.

“Together Forever” is produced by The Alchemist. This fact alone is enough to let you know that the track was produced wonderfully.

Besides these songs, most of the other tracks are all lazy trap beats. With a tracklist of 18 songs, only four tracks being produced nicely is quite bad. Overall, the production is good at absolute best.

Lastly, this album is truly not replayable at all. At most, I see myself listening to around five tracks over and over again. Yet again, for an 18-track tracklist, this is a terrible ratio to have.

Sure, Big Sean has been away for four years now. With that, I do get as to why he felt the need to bloat this album a little bit. With that being accounted for, this is still not the place to bloat something.

To compare and contrast, Kendrick Lamar was gone for five years from “DAMN” to “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.” Even after an extra year of being away, he only released 16 songs (if you don’t include interludes). He made sure to actually make a piece of art and didn’t allow for it to be unlistenable near the conclusion of the album just because he was absent for a long time.

Because of the size of the album, I couldn’t bring myself to listen to the entire project more than three times. With this, the replayability of the album is bad.

Taking all things talked about into consideration, this album overall is barely good, if even. I was expecting a lot more from Big Sean especially after hearing “Detroit 2.”

“Better Me Than You” is a 4 out of 10 for me.