In Spike Lee’s 2000 stand-up showcase The Original Kings of Comedy, Steve Harvey has a Black-famous segment reminiscing on the days when “music was music.” On stage, he transports the rowdy crowd back to the mid-1970s, the era of yearning soul ballads that felt so deeply real they could send a tingle through your entire body. He makes his point by blasting a few examples: The sweet vocal harmonies of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Would You Mind” gets people hitting doo-wop snaps in the aisles; the opening drum roll of the Ohio Players’ “I Want to Be Free” morphs into an orgasmic choir of screams; and the begging hook of Lenny Williams’ “’Cause I Love You” turns into panties on the stage and Steve Harvey Chun-Li kicking a stool. “Boy, this motherfucker sangin’ this song,” says Steve, as he dives into a hilariously cranky rant about what modern music is missing.

If I were to stage my own version of Harvey’s bit today, I’d be looking back at the bluesy hustle rappers who used to be synonymous with Southern hip-hop. I’m thinking Pimp C, who could go from sounding like the lead singer of a funk band to laying down unfiltered verses of straight pimpsploitation. Or maybe Big Moe, who sang-rapped like an ex-church boy turned high-roller. And now we have the country-fried D-boy raps of Fetty P Franklin, a Charlotte storyteller who sounds like he means every word that comes out of his mouth. For years now, he’s been scraping together autobiographical and darkly funny memories (“My uncle used to give me brown liquor when I was wearin’ Pampers,” he raps on “Paper Cups,” off the deluxe edition of FRANK, the 2025 tape that blew his music up to another level) of the project-housing environment that shaped him into the sort of guy who could “make a thousand quicker than I can make a salad.” It’s old school go-getter rap where nostalgia is part of the appeal but doesn’t feel like the schtick.

Franklin’s keeping the momentum going with THE FRANK PLAY, his hard-hitting new joint mixtape with popular Tennessee producer Bandplay, known to me for helping to cultivate the 808-heavy thump of modern Memphis rap through his bundle of beats that landed on Young Dolph and Key Glock’s Dum and Dummer series. This rapper-producer link-up makes a lot of sense, considering that Dolph’s unglamorous grind music seems like an obvious inspiration on Fetty. It’s especially apparent in a lot of the tape’s down-the-middle motivation rap, like “Line On It,” where over Bandplay’s muscle beat, Fetty is so consumed by the dope game that his girl is mad at him for neglecting her. Or “Got Em Hatin’,” a rugged anything-it-takes anthem that is pretty generic but probably ringing off the walls in SEC football locker rooms.

I prefer the Fetty P Franklin songs that don’t sound as much like they fell off the Memphis radio-rap assembly line and instead prioritize his big, riotous personality. He’s in that mode on “Trident,” which has the unserious seriousness that pre-pandemic DaBaby and Stunna 4 Vegas back-and-forths used to have: “Before I ever got my dick wet, bitch I had a gun.” The Young Scooter-ish beat-the-odds determination of “Grind 4 Nothin’” takes off when the triumphant horns mix with a flood of his trademark “Huah” ad-libs that make him sound like he’s in the Venom Mob. I’ve been humming the “All I Know” hook since I heard it; his raw, imperfect croons have an effortless soul to them that splits the difference between goofy and heartfelt.

The Frank Play is held back slightly by Bandplay’s formulaic trap tradition, but that doesn’t stop Fetty from unleashing his Blues Brother dreams. He’s wailing like a Trill Entertainment pupil on “Like Me Before,” and gutting out the hook of “Potato.” “Die for You” spins Prince bars into an ode to choosing love over the hustle, which he romantically phrases as something about how he’d rather have a finger in her butt than be standing out on the corner. At the end of the song, he’s mumble-singing about holding hands with his girl in the rain in a way that feels silly on the first listen and then like the ultimate display of affection the next. It’s not at all gimmicky—just the same kind of unpolished, grandparents-raised front-porch melodies that were a lot easier to find in Southern rap before the Auto-Tune boom. If we were back on the Kings of Comedy stage, there’d be couples two-stepping with their hands clasped together, screaming, “They don’t make ’em like Fetty P anymore.”