This is comparing things, on the one hand, like 1017 thug, Honest, no label 2 and ‘feels good to be rich’ with later albums by the same artists; barter 6, 56 nights, culture, keep flexin.
The types of instrumentals used on the early projects and the later ones fit into two different camps. You can hear the gradual evolution of the sound over time, 2014 in particular seems to be the transition year.
The early stuff is largely centered around a sort of ‘midi-orchestra’ sound; the kind of preset, inbuilt midi strings, brass, choirs, church bells, etc. you get with DAW’s. similarly there are also a lot of preset-sounding synth sounds. Even when it doesn’t fit into that mould you’re still getting the instrumentation being idiomatic; it’s derivative of pre-established genres. In terms of arrangement a lot of it’s more maximalist and dense.
On the other hand, the later stuff is more minimal and is not particularly derivative of anything. You couldn’t point to instrumentals and say ‘it sounds like x genre’. I think the timbres are warmer as well.