Like a real-life urban drama script (think Hustle & Flow or Juice),
Jay Rock's hard-edged debut focuses on his struggles to leave the mean streets behind him as he tries to make it as an artist. As a onetime gang member of the Bloods in the projects of Watts, California,
Rock has street credibility to spare, and like gangsta purveyors
N.W.A and
Snoop Dogg, he has a true knack for rhyming about the dangers of the West Coast.
Follow Me Home was several years in the making. The gruff-voiced rapper scored a deal with Warner Bros. by persistently hustling his demos and mixtapes (he acts out this process in a video for the ghetto homage lead single “All My Life”), and then split to
Tech N9ne’s
Strange Music when things were not progressing fast enough. The result of the long wait was a carefully constructed album. Along with
Lil Wayne, who appears on “All My Life,” the album boasts production from
the Game and an impressive list of collaborators, including
Ab-Soul,
Chris Brown,
Rick Ross, and
will.i.am. ~ Jason Lymangrover