First spin through, this one is more consistent that 'Sun's Tirade' but with lower highs. Nothing as good as '4r da squad' 'Free Lunch' or 'Wat's wrong'... let alone 'Heavenly Father'. HB2U is dope tho.
He is moving into his own sound though - verging on pop at times; lots of catchy hooks and 808s. Beats are nice on this, without being overly memorable.
2. "sometimes i feel like he doesn't want to be a recording artist" In response to Reply # 0 Fri Jul-30-21 04:29 PM by bearfield
maybe i'm reading too much into his progressively lax delivery and huge gaps between albums. maybe he's just a top tier procrastinator. i haven't been impressed with any of the singles from this album but a listen might reveal some quality deep cuts. he's usually good for a couple of those
4. "it's ok" In response to Reply # 0 Sat Jul-31-21 04:33 AM by bearfield
kind of forgettable tbh. musically it seems to reside in the same general area as sun's tirade (i.e., that mid-south/appalachia recontexualized-semi-recognizable-sample-from-a-90s-rap-song style that isaiah tends to favor.) i guess this is a good thing but i'm not sure what this project does instrumentally that sun's tirade didn't already do. maybe evolving or switching up wasn't a priority for him. this album does seem like good wallpaper music; you can have on in the background and pay attention to it every now and again and still enjoy it a lot. isaiah's rapping (patterns, schemes, flows) is pretty mediocre throughout but he is nestled in these nice little pockets most of the time. he never tries to do too much on any song and truly works within the confines of the instrumentals. after one full listen i found that the lyrics aren't particularly good or memorable. i didn't hear any jaw dropping pithy lines like some of the ones on sun's tirade and cilvia demo. not even anything really adjacent to that. the lyricism struck me as concise but lacking depth, like he pared it back so much that it became muddy instead of blurry. not so much dropping it off so the listener can pick it up but just vague and and uninteresting. i'll have to give it another go for a deeper examination of the lyrics but i can't say i'm super motivated to do so. i did really like 'rip young' but not much else stood out to me
although I can see why people who *only* rock with Cilvia Demo dislike THIB
The Sun's Tirade is messy, beautiful, introspective and personal -- Zay won't ever be in a place to record something like that again (which is a good thing), but the album that came from that struggle was amazing
10. "I wonder about Ab-Soul" In response to Reply # 9
He was really the number two of the first wave of TDE. A lot of folks preferred Control System to anything else they'd put out at the time. And the fall off has been crazy. These Days and DWTW both got lukewarm receptions at best (I didn't like either project), and he's only had 5 guest appearances in the past 5 years. Zay said he was sitting in on THIB studio sessions, but this dude has just been... absent.
--
"You can't beat white people. You can only knock them out."
firstly fuck anyone leaking videos of intimate acts between consenting adults. secondly he seems to be ok or at least well enough to perform at coachella and address it, if somewhat obliquely. i hope a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. it must have been incomprehensively difficult to have to repress those feelings and thoughts within three traditionally homophobic separate but overlapping subsets: black men (specifically gen x and boomers), southerners, and rappers. it's one thing for tyler and nas x to come out in liberal LA and NYC but zay comes from the belly of the bible belt. it's a whole different culture and response down there when it comes to homosexuality. does this make him the first openly gay (assuming he makes such a statement publicly) male rapper from the south not named big freedia?
17. "I think for the most part people didn't care as long as he was good" In response to Reply # 16 Sun Apr-17-22 06:17 PM by Mafamaticks
The newer generation don't give a fuck about any of that. I feel most millennials don't really give a shit either. Whoever does have a problem with it are mostly likely too old to matter anyway.
>does this make him the first openly gay (assuming he makes such a statement publicly) male >rapper from the south not named big freedia?
He could be bi. Either way don't make me no never mind. With the way he handled it, it seems like dude was just living his life and the people who needed to know knew already. For anybody else it was none of their business.
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