CGN Waze – Back For Everything (Album Review)

Charleston native and artist, CGN Waze, breaks a 2 year hiatus with the release of his new album Back For Everything. CGN Waze gained some notoriety in the city with his 2019 release “Lately” ft Fast Cash, which appeared on the well-known platform Worldstar HipHop.

Back For Everything is a culmination of tracks that represent CGN Waze’s shift in mindset from his ways of old and how he’s tapped in to different motivations. Along with this, he tells stories of how street life, loss of love, family, and friends have aided that shift for the better, but it always lives within him.

Back For Everything gives you feels of Roddy Rich, Toosie, Rod Wave, and Young Thug with a slight Charleston twist. This 13 track album is loaded with melodies, storytelling, and demanding content that draws you and and gives you a piece of the artist.

The production is a mix of southern trap-soul, with heavy acoustic influences that add a nice breeze to the depth of CGN Waze’s content and delivery. On top of that, CGN’s voice is truly one of a kind and is extremely cohesive sonically with the production he chose to drive the album.

“Dear Lord” starts the album off with an open letter to God about his unwavering faith, even in the tough times throughout his life. When we are going rough patches, sometimes we forget to tap into our spirit, God, or whatever you believe. CGN Waze gives us a raw, open look at his personal conversation with God and how he’s reconnecting with his faith.

A common thread throughout the album is the idea of overcoming past trauma and using that as the energy to motivate a better life for CGN Waze and family. Tracks like “Distant Loner”, “Sunny Days”, and “Demons” really provide in-depth feels into some of CGN Waze’s deepest processes on this road to financial, mental, and career freedom. In these songs in particular, he talks about external and internal battles he has with trauma and how they currently affect his mentality and decision making.

In “Demons” he really lets the listener in by letting us know that even after living in the triumph of shifting his life, he still has to deal and fight with his demons. These demons can be anything from past trauma and regrets to bad deeds and violence, all of which CGN uses as fuel to never turn back to these struggles again.

The levels of transparency mixed with an overall contemplative, trap-soul production impressed me throughout my listen to Back For Everything. Another introspective concept CGN Waze dabbled in is the realm of love gained, love lost, and love never obtained. “Bad Love”, “From the Heart”, and “Your Turn”, touch on three very different concepts surrounding love and relationship: 1) all love, isn’t good love. 2) being betrayed by love and 3) not trusting love enough to ever do it again after a heartbreak.

Throughout the album you can hear the genuine emotion in CGN Waze’s voice, a powerful factor in the display of his sound. This gives a certain level of relatability and authenticity to more grittier tracks like “Sumn like 50” and “Safe and Sound” featuring Askari Turf.

CGN talks about the violence he’s experienced growing up in the city and how the dangers of mindless gun violence have put him in a position to stay on his pivot and get home ‘safe and sound’ by all costs.

As much as CGN Waze presents traumatic stories and situations, he also motivates the listener to avoid these harsh realities by staying focused on financial freedom and determined to only make progress. Adding OG Billy Cas to the mix, CGN Waze gives us “Bluestrips”, a club ready, street anthem about getting to it at all cost.

On the other hand, we have the bright trap-rock bop, “Money” which talks about choosing money over love. Committing to your purpose, marrying the game and creating stability in order to properly give love a shot, if that’s your path. CGN Waze let’s us know that he’s ‘too young to be in love’ and he’s dropping all distractions for that good ole Ben Frank.

Bring the album to its end is “Far Away” which summarizes CGN’s goal to get his money right and spread his legacy beyond the borders of South Carolina.

As an artist it’s important to have an angst to create opportunities for yourself outside of the comfort zone. In CGN’s case, he’s relinquishing himself of the systems of violence, drugs, bad decisions, and traumatic history that has held a grasp on his energy for so long with “Far Away”.

Super solid, #GxldApproved reemergence from CGN Waze with Back For Everything. Tap in to the album below and keep an eye out for CGN Waze on the Charleston scene.