[11] Thomas Hobbs of Telegraph.co.uk characterizes the album's moods as a balance "between feeling like you're king of the world, unwinding in a presidential suites, and being... paranoid of jealous enemies".

[10] Paul Simpson of AllMusic notes that, despite "tales of luxurious excess", the album's lyrics predominantly "focus on the bleakest aspects of the struggle".

[10][6][3] The production on Soul Sold Separately has been noted for its variety, featuring a diverse lineup of producers who bring sounds inspired by various East Coast, Midwestern, and Southern regional scenes.

Dash Lewis of HipHopDX describes a "pretty cohesive" usage of features like "spacey synths and lush soul samples that snake around tightly coiled drums", and Paul Attard of Slant characterizes the production as "uniformly lavish".

[9] A more positive appraisal of the production came from Paul Simpson of AllMusic, who described the album as "grander in scope than Gibbs' rightly praised single-producer efforts" while still being "nearly as consistent".