![]() ![]() "I used to wanna rap like Jay-Z, now I feel I can run laps around Jay-Z," he tells us matter-of-factly on "ILLuminate", and I think of Lil Wayne explaining why he called himself "Best Rapper Alive" on Dedication 2: When you are busy mastering your craft, you should absolutely feel like you are the best at it in the universe. But Control System booms with self-possession and confidence. He is probably the member of Black Hippy who has spent the most time in a headlock. Ab-Soul is the only member of Black Hippy from the suburbs (Carson, Calif.) he throws around terminology like "paradigm shift" in his lyrics. Ab-Soul can’t even fuck with Herbert,” one of his longtime friends, King Richard, says at the end of “No Report Card.” The Black Lip Bastard has set high standards, but his homie may have a point.Now here's Ab-Soul, speaking for himself, on the opening track to his resounding new full-length Control System: "Said I was the underdog/ Turned out I was the secret weapon." The album opens with a quote from Janet Jackson ("This is a story about control/ My control"), and Control System similarly feels like a young artist discovering his voice. (The music video bravely recreates the conditions of his suicide attempt, while a separate lyrics video shows comments from fans sharing how the song impacted them.) “Herbert,” meanwhile, details the relentless string of struggles that he’s fought all his life: being diagnosed at 10 years old with the rare disease Stevens-Johnson syndrome, which impacts his skin and his vision losing his father to gun violence and his former partner Alori Joh to suicide and more.īut what’s notably missing from Herbert is those conspiracy theories that electrified older albums like Control System he’d rather mine his own life experiences for deeper meaning instead of digging through the annals of YouTube and message boards. ![]() He revisits his younger days of memorizing Kris Kross lyrics (“Hollandaise”) and dealing with shady promoters during his journey to rap stardom (“Moonshooter”) taps into the street culture of his hometown of Carson, California (“Gang’nem”) and spits like his life is on the line on the DJ Premier-produced “Gotta Rap.”īut the centerpieces of the album are “Do Better” and the title track, “Herbert.” On the former, Soul grapples with depression and substance abuse while motivating himself to strive for his personal best. It makes for his most grounded record yet: His boastful rhymes teem with gratitude, his nostalgic verses produce sharply distinct memories, and voicemails from family members and loved ones hold the album together. (This included things like seeing an image of Hitler in photos of the 9/11 attacks.) So this time around, the cerebral, heart-baring lyricist sheds the veneer of his rap moniker and exposes fans to his real name, Herbert. He lost two of his best friends-rappers Mac Miller and Doeburger-and started to climb out of what he describes as a “rabbit hole” of misinformation and conspiracy theories that impacted his relationships with loved ones and critics alike. In the six long years since Ab-Soul last released an album, he's been through a lot. ![]()
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