Dirty Nachos Mixtape Review: Throwaways? Or Deserving Of more Attention?

By Writer: Ronan Mitchell

Originally published on: March 18th 2024

INFO:

Project Name: Dirty Nachos

Artist(s): Chief Keef & Mike WiLL Made-It

Release Date: March 15th 2024

Genre: Rap/Trap/Drill

Intro:

It’s official! Almighty Sosa himself, Chief Keef is back from the dead with his newest project: Dirty Nachos. Dirty Nachos is Keef’s 2024 collab tape with ATL powerhouse producer-songwriter Mike WiLL Made-It, who is best known for producing hits such as “Black Beatles" by Rae Sremmurd and “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar.

Dirty Nachos serves as Chief Keef’s first project since the Chicago native dropped his studio album 4NEM dropped all the way back in 2021. 4NEM received an overwhelming amount of positive reviews from fans and critics, giving room for speculation that Sosa might’ve been feeling the pressure of following such a project up. However, In between projects fans have been treated to a plethora of singles and features, some of which have emerged in virality like “Tony Montana Flow” and “MURDAMAN!”. It’s clear to many that the love surrounding Chief Keef, the self proclaimed “Godfather of Drill” isn’t dying anytime soon.

The Emergence Of A Hybrid Sosa:

So what can fans expect from Dirty Nachos? To put it best, this tape serves as the intersection where Old and New Chief Keef meet. For starters, it’s worth noting Mike WiLL Made-It & Chief Keef have been frequent collaborators since the dawn of Chief Keef’s career, with Mike producing “No Tomorrow” off of Sosa’s iconic 2012 debut album “Finally Rich” back when Keef was only 17. The fact that Sosa and Mike have been collaborating for so long, evolving together and end up dropping a tape together 12 years later is symbolic in itself. It proves what kind of Chief Keef we’ll be hearing on this project without even listening to a note off the project. The tape is also a Trapaholics mixtape, (yes, the “damn son where’d ya find this” people), a style of mixtape that reached its peak around the same time Chief Keef was first starting out his career. To hear Sosa try and bring back that sound of Rap with his modern voice, adapted to the new age sounds of rap was bound to have the effect of a hybrid Sosa! But does that create a pleasant listening experience for fans?

Listening Experience:

Listeners are first greeted with the Trap-A-Holics tag when they hit play on “Intro”, the first track off of Dirty Nachos. We hear Mike WiLL Made-It leaving presumably Keef a voicemail. Mike proposes that Sosa and him team up and drop a mixtape to show fans what they’ve been working on since their music is leaking, the streets are asking for music and Mike thinks fans should be treated to a little snack until they “get the main course”. Presumably “Almighty So 2”, Chief Keef’s highly anticipated and repeatedly delayed fifth studio album is the “Main Course” in question here. We then dive into “2 TIMES”, this is where we meet the recurring hybrid Sosa coming with punchy vocals like the ones heard on 4NEM and laying back into smoother vocals as heard on 2015’s “Back From The Dead 2”.

Sosa maintains this same energy and flow onto “DIRTY NACHO” matching the bounciness of the beat provided by Mike WiLL. This energy seemingly dies off in "DOJA" that begins with a melodic intro but is met with a monotone Keef struggling on a fast paced beat. When Sosa seems to finally pick up the pace, the song is cut off by an interlude and then replaced with the low BPM track “RIDICULOUSNESS", Sosa maintains his lazy flow here only this time with more charisma.

Features:

The tape’s only two features come paired in the tracklisting. 2 Chainz continues with the laid back flow Sosa has established throughout previous two tracks on “PULL UP GHOST-CLAN”. I thought 2 Chainz did his part here, he really matched the vibe of not only the song, but Chief Keef.

Then along comes “DAMN SHORTY”, my favorite song off the project. The track starts abruptly with Sexyy Redd, a recent frequent collaborator of Keefs. Redd starts off the track previewing her punchy verse, we get some mixtape tags and you can really feel the energy! Both Keef and Redd attack this song in a way that almost makes you say “Yes, I am listening to a Mixtape right now, not a studio album!” (too bad nobody talks like that).

Chief Keef & Mike WiLL Made-It in the studio together

The Second Act:

The second act of the album feels like a trip down memory lane, we hear nearly all of Keef’s different vocal styles he’s used throughout the years, leading me to believe the throwaways that this tape is composed of, span a larger amount of time then most projects. One thing I hated was that by the time you reach “BEWARE OF DOGS”, the twelfth track, it feels like you have heard the same beat from Mike WiLL Made-It made it on five times already. Repetitiveness is a peril of producer-rapper tapes which just wasn’t avoided here.

Some tracks here also really do feel like throwaways here, and not just didn’t make the album tracklist throwaways, but this song should’ve been thrown into the trash after the studio session. In particular, “GIRL WOO” is an example of one of these throw-the-song-away tracks, I don’t understand why it needed to be five minutes long or even made. The songs' oddly long run time and lack of lyricism/vocal presence makes me think Sosa was just fooling around in the studio when they made this and they were like “Ok! Throw it in”. To be fair though, the second half does have some bangers like “LOVE DON’T LIVE HERE” which would be best described as a classic modern Chief Keef track. The second half is also home to singles from the duo that were already on streaming services such as “STATUS” “HARLEY QUINN” “BANG BANG” which all go hard respectively.

Final Thoughts:

There's definitely some hits and some misses here, definitely a lot more hits, but with 17 tracks how can you mess that ratio up? Mike WiLL Made-It and Chief Keef definitely do have some chemistry together, there's no denying that, when you’ve been colleagues for 12 years it would be hard to not to.

I have to stand back and take a moment to admire Keef and Mike’s creative decisions on this project. I think it was bold, yet fitting to do a Trapaholics mixtape in 2024, especially when you start to think about how old some of these tracks might be. Sure, they probably did get lazy at points and just drop in whatever was left in the undusted corners of Mike WiLL’s harddrive to make the tracklist longer, but also who cares? Isn’t that what mixtapes are for?

Overall I give this project 7 “Bang-Bangs” out of 10. It’s got some filler, some laziness and repetitiveness but it’s also a hard-hitting project that flows well together, with some excellent creative direction and introduces a hybrid Chief Keef, that fans both old and new might just fall in love with.

Review by Ronan Mitchell of MixedUsage

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