The South Central Los Angeles rapper G Perico doesn’t have the same hype as he had a few years ago, but he’s still making hard, nasal, primally satisfying West Coast rap music. He delivers his slick talk with a conversational smoothness that recalls Too Short, but and his high-pitched, near-cartoonish delivery has some Eazy-E in it. I really like this guy. Last year, Perico released the Girl Talk-produced single “Toolie” and appeared (in a non-rapping role) on the Terrace Martin/Denzel Curry/Kamasi Washington protest song “PIG FEET.” Today, out of nowhere, he’s popped up with a new EP.

Perico’s new Free is a six-track slapper with no big-name producers and with only one guest, an R&B singer named Garren on the final track “Angle.” So Perico is the whole show here, and he’s plenty. Especially on the EP’s first half, he brings a fiery confidence, sneering hard and coming up with some hard lines: “I learned how to drive in that ’85 Cutlas/ .38, first gun I ever busted.”

At the end of the EP, Perico says that this is the beginning of “my 2021 run, my 12-month run, my quadruple-my-worth run.” It’s a strong beginning. Stream the EP below.

The self-released Free is out now.