![]() The strength of the dynasty though is their unique but complementing personalities, and none is more bold and boundless than Ab-Soul.įrom his flowing hair and dark shades, to his wordplay and concepts, it’s clear Soul is a free spirit. Favoring quality over quantity, and exercising patience in pursuit of perfection, they have earned the top spot with pure skill, sans gimmicks. It’s evident that they are students of the game, with a deep respect for the craft and culture. The Los Angeles-based team of Ab-Soul, Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock and Isaiah Rashad is loaded with talent, and with nine albums combined over the past three years, they have yet to shoot a brick. ![]() With Ab’s major label debut now pending for release in 2015, it’ll be exciting to see what levels of lucidity await.It’s not breaking news at this point, but in the hip-hop world, no one is touching T.D.E. These Days… chases euphoria throughout, but it doesn’t always capture it. His songwriting has suffered, though, due to an inebriated lack of coherence. Ab-Soul may have momentarily lost his way, but he hasn’t lost his ability to rap, and that’s the most important thing. While These Days… does linger a bit too long in the depths of intoxication, it’s difficult to write this off as anything less than a solid indie release. When the DJ Dahi beat drops like a coda, Soulo rips off name flip after name flip in his greatest technical display. “This money got me on the run/ And it don’t grow on trees, I’m tryna get me some,” he explains in the hook, and the message reads loud and clear. Ab-Soul returns a long overdue favor to Kendrick by giving him his own interlude, and Kendrick eviscerates it, rapping as if irate: “These streets made me, broke me down, built me up, drove me crazy.” On “Tree of Life”, he raps metaphorically about his life in botanical terms, and he makes it very clear he’s operating now with green in mind. “Just Have Fun” is like riding around on a synth cloud on LSD. Ab even tucks a rap battle with Daylyt in at the tail end of the closer, “W.R.O.H.”.ĭespite the intermittent confusion, though, These Days… is an interesting listen with moments of crystal acuity. There is no direction, which is bound to be an issue on a 90-minute album. Overall, the songwriting is shoddy, even with the TDE MC maintaining his technical edge. “Twact” is basically just a lackluster YG cover. Cole production sneaks its way into the latter half. Rick Ross is sandwiched in between Lupe and Short Dawg. Things get strange when Ab isn’t at his sharpest. Being a rap intellectual - constantly conscious - can get tiring. Or perhaps it simply wants to forget it’s smart. It’s still smart, it just feigns ignorance. The drugs seemingly prevent Ab from being fully lucid, and he tiptoes back and forth between his typical shtick and a hyper-sexualized brand of lean rap. It’s fringe rap that exists mostly in the abstract amid a wave of sedatives and psychedelics. These Days… is far less conspiratorial than its fantastically paranoia-charged predecessor, Control System, but it isn’t any less weird. On his third studio album, These Days…, Ab-Soul’s metaphysical train derails in a druggy haze and crashes into the harsh actualities of life, with mixed results. Before, the drug use felt like a gateway to higher thinking - think DMT’s role on “Pineal Gland”. (Just to be clear: “off” means “on” here, although “heroin” can be heard as “heroine,” meaning his late longtime girlfriend, vocalist Alori Joh.) His sonics now operate in a narcotic fog, as if to loosen his grip on reality. ![]() ![]() “My girl died and I lost my mind/ I’m off everything except heroin,” he raps in a dreary opener produced by Purity Ring’s Corin Roddick. These days, it feels like he’s questioning a lot of things.ĭrugs are his crutch. When the California rapper first popped onto the rap radar with his cameo on the outro of Kendrick Lamar’s indie album, Section.80, it was clear that he had all the answers. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing it’s just different.
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