Rappers love Kenny Beats. They can pull up to his L.A. studio, find a comfy spot in the room to roll up a little weed, and wait for the producer to make a beat perfectly tailored to their taste. In minutes, the Connecticut-born beatmaker will have their fantasies cooked up—maybe they’ll even get a comical social media post or their own episode of his YouTube series The Cave. After leaving the touring EDM duo LOUDPVCK, he immersed himself in hip-hop, and now his range is nearly limitless. Kenny can make hyphy Bay Area anthems for ALLBLACK; he can capture the headbanging punk-inspired rage of Rico Nasty; Sada Baby can hit his best gyrating two-step to one of his funky Detroit instrumentals; his West Coast beats are breezy enough for 03 Greedo’s hair to sway in the Cali wind. Kenny Beats can do it all.

For Denzel Curry, blurring regional lines is the norm. As a teenager he was a member of Raider Klan, a South Florida-based rap clique obsessed with Memphis crunk and Houston screw. But even as he ventured outside of his area code, the throughline of his music has always been his Miami home. In 2019, Curry released ZUU, which used his city’s rich musical history as a foundation: beat breakdowns ready for an Uncle Luke night at a strip club, grimy Trick Daddy-influenced verses, and a guest spot from Rick Ross, rapping about cocaine. Unlocked is a curveball; for the first time he completely upends his roots, with the help of Kenny Beats.

Unlocked sounds like a descendant of outer-borough New York City rap sometime between Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and EL-P’s Fantastic Damage. Over the course of the brief eight-track album, Curry’s appreciation for the era comes across as genuine. He retrofits his manic and messy Miami Gardens-bred rapping style into cadences that pay homage to unhinged hip-hop personalities like DMX and Ol’ Dirty Bastard. On “So.Incredible.pkg,” maybe the album’s best, he says, “It’s the man of the hour/Super confident and my clothes yell it louder,” not quite reaching the drunken chaos of the beloved ODB, but coming close.

Curry’s energy is unpredictable enough to prevent the homage from feeling stale. Similar to early DMX, Curry’s gifted at causing mayhem while remaining fully in control. “Lay_Up.m4a” gradually builds to the disarray, delivered over a Kenny standout that’s grim enough for an after hours bus ride to the deepest corner of Queens. “Take_It_Back_v2” blends his slowed vocals with chipmunk-high ones, a refreshingly cartoonish track that fits alongside the short animated film released with the album.

But for the most part, Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats are on different wavelengths. Where Curry is chaotic, Kenny is too neat. The producer approaches the intro to the project like he’s following a step-by-step guide titled “How to make a RZA beat”—the video clip sample is placed too cleanly and the beat drop is glossier than anything that would ever leave RZA’s mid-’90s basement studio.“‘Cosmic’.m4a” wants to capture the grime of New York’s former underground, but it’s smooth around the edges instead of sounding like it was made in the sewer. “So.Incredible.pkg” features sharp rapping by Curry, but the production is like an early Pro Era record without the feeling of teenage sincerity and discovery.

Any excuse to hear Denzel rapping right now is a good one. But Unlocked feels like it was made out of convenience—like going to Chipotle instead of the corner Mexican spot because it’ll save you 20 minutes. It’s good, sure. Curry is rapping his ass off. But Kenny Beats’ production isn’t anything new. There are no imperfections, no colors outside of the lines, and with that, it misses some of the heart that makes regional rap special.