Emerging in the mid-2010s as a teenager, first as Lil Herb, Chicago rapper G Herbo distinguished himself by importing fast flows and intricate narratives into the more spartan, brutalist drill style innovated by Chief Keef and Lil Durk. Across subsequent projects, Herb’s rapping became only more prodigious and his gang-oriented storytelling and trash-talking only more elaborate and acute. Respect for his artistry accrued among street-rap devotees, setting him up for a gradual but pronounced ascent in the industry. The rapper’s major breakthrough on the album charts came with his third studio project, PTSD, which arrived in an epic-scale deluxe edition three months after its initial release. Over the course of the deluxe version's 94 minutes, Herbo trawls harrowing memories of street life across dense, guttural verses. He carries the lion’s share of these tracks on his own, employing features sparingly on his first disc, before ceding the stage at dramatically appropriate moments on the album’s stylistically varied second half. All of Herbo’s music is infused with a deep-seated sense of existential sadness. Tracks like “OFNG” are studies in grief, recalling the passing of old friends, culminating in angry pyrotechnics; Herbo’s voice periodically sounds worn down to a hoarse husk. On “Party in Heaven,” a duet with fellow drill progenitor Lil Durk, the two compare war stories and unpack trauma over a restrained neo-soul-reminiscent groove, shaded by a haunting and distant R&B sample. “Lawyer Fees” finds the student—younger Chicago talent Polo G—joining forces with the master on a funereal beat with a bluesy edge: “My brother gone, now he can't hop inside this Royce with me/How I keep escaping death like he avoiding me?” With an hour and a half to stretch out, Herbo gives a full tour of his artistry, thematically and musically. There are spare trap creepers like “In This Bitch"; textbook drill moments like the Lil Uzi Vert–assisted gang anthem “Like This"; lush tracks with a more cosmopolitan, East Coast bent (see “In a Minute,” with its punchy flow and dancing horn synth motif); and sleek, R&B-hook-driven anomalies like “Gangstas Cry.” But no matter how many directions Herbo pushes in on PTSD, he never seems confused about who he is and where he came from.