Chris DeLine

With a first look at the forthcoming Donny Ca$h project dropping about a week back in the form of the Grady-produced “What’s On Your Mind,” Nashville’s Dee Goodz is keeping the momentum going with another “inspirational anthem” in the form of “Look What I Came From.” Sampling Lana Del Rey’s “Off to the Races,” the Grady & OdizzyBeatz-produced song finds the MC reflecting on his past, his raspy vocals playing to a theme of gratitude and triumph while remembering early battles. “Real shit, homie, we ain’t livin’ like a cartoon / Made it out the trenches do you want to see the war wounds?” With the sound of the track being as dense as it is, it’s easy to let the message take a backseat, but when absorbing the words and production as a complete unit, the combination is powerful, “Never let a mother fucker tell you that you ain’t none.”

Bluntly put, there’s bound to be a lot of dick-riding when Dee’s new album drops; there definitely was when he came through with Floetic Justice II last year (note: few were guiltier than I was). One of the things to be cautious of though is writing the man’s work off because of it: History calls that contempt prior to investigation. And if you put the effort in to discover what Dee Goodz is about, you’re going to find an MC still developing his skills, who refuses to be defined or confined by local barriers in his journey. The man tours — which is so very unfortunately rare in the Nashville community — and has been working hard for as long as he says he has. The results speak for themselves in the music.

“Yeah, look what I came from.”

[This article first appeared on Break on a Cloud.]