Album: Shiesty Season: Certified by Pooh Shiesty (2022)
Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap
Format: Album

Description: While the traditional hip-hop meccas of New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta garner more headlines, one of the most compelling storylines in that genre during the 2010s and early 2020s has been the emergence of Memphis as a creative hub whose breakout stars have subtly reoriented street rap as dance music. Gucci Mane protégé Pooh Shiesty is one of his hometown’s most magnetic new voices. Shiesty Season: Certified, an expansion of his 2021 studio debut, doubles down on its Memphis-ness, finding him more sinister—and more playful—than ever. Take the careening “No Clues”, where Shiesty and fellow local hero Big Scarr trade threats with expertly comic timing. Though Shiesty can seem like an uncontrollable ball of energy, Certified reveals him as a sly master of precision.

Music Scene: Emerged in the 2000s era. Associated with Trap movement.

Tags: Hip-Hop/Rap, 2020s, Album

While the traditional hip-hop meccas of New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta garner more headlines, one of the most compelling storylines in that genre during the 2010s and early 2020s has been the emergence of Memphis as a creative hub whose breakout stars have subtly reoriented street rap as dance music. Gucci Mane protégé Pooh Shiesty is one of his hometown’s most magnetic new voices. Shiesty Season: Certified, an expansion of his 2021 studio debut, doubles down on its Memphis-ness, finding him more sinister—and more playful—than ever. Take the careening “No Clues”, where Shiesty and fellow local hero Big Scarr trade threats with expertly comic timing. Though Shiesty can seem like an uncontrollable ball of energy, Certified reveals him as a sly master of precision.

Album: Shiesty Season by Pooh Shiesty (2021)
Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap
Format: Album

Description: The most accurate distillation of Pooh Shiesty’s mission on debut mixtape Shiesty Season comes from one of the project’s guests. “I don’t wanna rap about nothing but gunplay,” 21 Savage deadpans on “Box of Churches”. Savage appears on the tape alongside fellow street-rap heavyweights Gucci Mane and Lil Durk, as well as a handful of lesser-known MCs like BIG30, Choppa Wop and Lil Hank. If they have a single thing in common, it’s an affinity for high-powered weaponry. But it is Pooh Shiesty, of course, who set the tone. 
Across Shiesty Season’s 17 tracks, the MC consistently details, in that readily identifiable Memphis drawl, the importance of guns in his life on songs like “Back in Blood”, “50 Shots”, “Take a Life” and “Choppa Way”. Deviations from the theme are few and far between, even on songs like the one named for pioneering musical entrepreneur and Dirty South hip-hop legend Master P (“One shot to the head, may he rest in peace/I’m the reason doctors hooked him up, I feel like Master P”). And lest you think a song called “Twerksum” was an attempt at appeasing the fairer sex, Shiesty is simply offering fair warning that the “choppa get to shaking like it twerk or something”.

Music Scene: Emerged in the 2000s era. Associated with Trap movement.

Tags: Hip-Hop/Rap, 2020s, Album

The most accurate distillation of Pooh Shiesty’s mission on debut mixtape Shiesty Season comes from one of the project’s guests. “I don’t wanna rap about nothing but gunplay,” 21 Savage deadpans on “Box of Churches”. Savage appears on the tape alongside fellow street-rap heavyweights Gucci Mane and Lil Durk, as well as a handful of lesser-known MCs like BIG30, Choppa Wop and Lil Hank. If they have a single thing in common, it’s an affinity for high-powered weaponry. But it is Pooh Shiesty, of course, who set the tone. 
Across Shiesty Season’s 17 tracks, the MC consistently details, in that readily identifiable Memphis drawl, the importance of guns in his life on songs like “Back in Blood”, “50 Shots”, “Take a Life” and “Choppa Way”. Deviations from the theme are few and far between, even on songs like the one named for pioneering musical entrepreneur and Dirty South hip-hop legend Master P (“One shot to the head, may he rest in peace/I’m the reason doctors hooked him up, I feel like Master P”). And lest you think a song called “Twerksum” was an attempt at appeasing the fairer sex, Shiesty is simply offering fair warning that the “choppa get to shaking like it twerk or something”.

Album: All Eyes on Shiest by Pooh Shiesty (2026)
Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap
Format: Album

Description: Too often, incarceration and related legal woes have disrupted or derailed rappers at various points in their career ascent. Regardless of one’s guilt or innocence, the corresponding inability to get into the studio and work can transform a hitmaker into an also-ran. Pooh Shiesty is all too familiar with this scenario, serving three years in prison following the success of his Shiesty Season mixtape and its charting singles like “Back in Blood” and “Neighbors”.

His subsequent release allowed the Memphis-born rapper to get back to making his long-awaited full-length debut. Yet mere months before the arrival of All Eyes On Shiest, he found himself back in federal custody, the tabloid headlines halting the momentum set by its presumed lead single “FDO”.

Not surprisingly, Shiesty’s first-ever album’s subject matter includes thoughts and anecdotes from his stint behind bars, beginning with pressure-cooking opener “I’m Back” and the resilient “Last Man Breathin”. As he did on his earlier songs, he draws upon street lore galore for “Reckless Living” and the unrepentant “Bigger Than the Program”. Yet those who’d accuse him of glorifying a violent lifestyle will want to listen to “Reap What You Sow” all the way through, its scared-straight messaging directed at those who just aren’t built like him.

As for guests, Shiesty keeps his circle here fairly tight. Repeat collaborator and fellow Memphis rapper BIG30 makes two appearances, first on the like-minded two-hander “Still on Timing” and later on the rambunctious posse cut “CMO Freestyle” with Baby Slime and K Carbon. The tone lightens comparatively for “Booty Club”, a raunchy Tay Keith production with Sexyy Red delivering a characteristically confident feature.

Music Scene: Emerged in the 2000s era. Associated with Trap movement.

Tags: Hip-Hop/Rap, 2020s, Album

Additional Context: Rating score: 10. Based on 1 votes

Too often, incarceration and related legal woes have disrupted or derailed rappers at various points in their career ascent. Regardless of one’s guilt or innocence, the corresponding inability to get into the studio and work can transform a hitmaker into an also-ran. Pooh Shiesty is all too familiar with this scenario, serving three years in prison following the success of his Shiesty Season mixtape and its charting singles like “Back in Blood” and “Neighbors”.

His subsequent release allowed the Memphis-born rapper to get back to making his long-awaited full-length debut. Yet mere months before the arrival of All Eyes On Shiest, he found himself back in federal custody, the tabloid headlines halting the momentum set by its presumed lead single “FDO”.

Not surprisingly, Shiesty’s first-ever album’s subject matter includes thoughts and anecdotes from his stint behind bars, beginning with pressure-cooking opener “I’m Back” and the resilient “Last Man Breathin”. As he did on his earlier songs, he draws upon street lore galore for “Reckless Living” and the unrepentant “Bigger Than the Program”. Yet those who’d accuse him of glorifying a violent lifestyle will want to listen to “Reap What You Sow” all the way through, its scared-straight messaging directed at those who just aren’t built like him.

As for guests, Shiesty keeps his circle here fairly tight. Repeat collaborator and fellow Memphis rapper BIG30 makes two appearances, first on the like-minded two-hander “Still on Timing” and later on the rambunctious posse cut “CMO Freestyle” with Baby Slime and K Carbon. The tone lightens comparatively for “Booty Club”, a raunchy Tay Keith production with Sexyy Red delivering a characteristically confident feature.

Pooh Shiesty

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