Released January 31, 2025,
on 1ShotEnt, 4Hunnid and 10K Projects.
It was early last year, fresh off his signing to 4Hunnid, that PayGotti first appeared on a lot of people’s radars. Being taken under YG’s wing certainly helps. Riding that momentum, he went on to drop some of his most talked-about releases. My Evil Thoughts is one of them, and its played-out premise (a rapper confronting his evil twin) tells you pretty much what to expect. It’s yet another spin on an age-old theme in African American music: temptation by Satan, the pact between the downtrodden and the devil, the one Robert Johnson sang about on “Me And the Devil Blues,” a cover of which is sampled on the album’s gorgeous title track.
The intro says it all. A full-fledged song in its own right, it opens in full-on melodrama, with PayGotti recounting his early years as a have-not seemingly destined for evil and a life of crime, all over weepy (synthetic) strings. Then, out of nowhere, thunderous bass kicks in, along with pitch-shifted samples, other more solemn ones, and barking dogs. In an instant, PayGotti plunges us into Stockton’s unmistakable sound.
Though he’s from Los Angeles himself, PayGotti knows exactly what he’s doing. It helps that most of the beats here come courtesy of Yvnng Ecko, the Fresno producer who made his name working with EBK Jaaybo. It’s all there: bells, steel drums, classy samples. With just the right amount of breathing room and variety, these elements conjure up suitably gothic atmospheres for tales of sex and murder, elevating the coarse, offensive raps that swing from introspection to gratuitous violence against opps, against women, against life itself.
PayGotti, then, is Stockton rap in all its glory. Except he’s not from Stockton.