Back In My Prime

With more than two decades in the game under his belt, Jim Jones is finally feeling his best. “It’s kinda crazy how I’m just reaching my prime,” he raps on “Status Update” from Back in My Prime, his collaborative project with continually in-demand producer Hitmaka. The MC has albums and singles—both as a member of his esteemed Harlem Diplomats group and as a soloist—that are all long cemented in NYC’s gangsta-rap canon, but to let Jones tell it, the best is still yet to come. He’s overjoyed at that conceit across Back in My Prime, relishing Hitmaka’s sample-heavy production as he spits bars that make the prospect of dating him sound both alluring and terrifying. And he mostly does so between choruses from some of the foremost voices in R&B and rap, including Jeremih, Ty Dolla $ign, Pleasure P, Tink, and Stefflon Don. But it wouldn’t be Jones if he didn’t have a few joints for the streets, and to that end he’s called up Benny the Butcher and Trav for “Bet It All” and Jamaican American dancehall toaster BEAM for “Gunshot.”