Zilla Rocca is an artist from Philadelphia who has been making music for over fifteen years, rocking with The Wrecking Crew and making albums in recent years with andrew and DJ Chong Wizard. Now he’s teamed up with Chicago producer Jason Griff to drop a new album, Stacking Chips.

Jason Griff is a Chicago producer who has only been releasing music for about the last four years, but he’s already made some huge strides, collaborating with emcee Alaska on 2021’s Human Zoo, and then again this January when they dropped Pop Songs for the Apocalypse. In working with Zilla Rocca, it feels like the assignment was to only produce bangers because they wanted to have fun with this project. Now, Zilla Rocca is a veteran and a thoughtful person, so there are a few moments across the album where he gives himself space to get serious. “Frank Castle” is a song that takes to task the phenomenon of cops identifying with the Punisher logo, and “Love is DOOMed” is a song that sounds silly and fun at first, but then reveals itself as a song about a rap nerd/introvert not being able to date a social butterfly with parties to go to. While these songs help to give the album some needed depth and variety, the majority of this album is about big drums, fun sample flips, and just having a blast talking some shit on the mic. Rocca has a great wry sense of humor, and he’s able to weave some social commentary against some pop culture references and just talking mad trash, making for a really engaging performance across the album. On top of that, he’s got a lot of friends stopping by to join in the fun, with Shrapknel, Defcee, ZeroStar, SolarFive, Ace Cannons, Skech185, Milc, Alaska, Jesse the Tree, andrew, and Alex Ludovico all hopping on the mic, giving the album a real posse feel.

Sometimes you don’t need to overthink it. With Stacking Chips, you just need to turn this shit up and let a veteran emcee and talented young producer get busy with some beats and rhymes that are fun and hit hard.