Ab-Soul – These Days…
TDE: 2014
While many see Kendrick Lamar as the heart of Top Dawg Entertainment, fans have grown to liken his labelmate Ab-Soul to the mind. An emcee known to boast about his brain power, his incredibly cerebral album
Control System showed the world the captivating nature of his intelligence in 2012; the world is apparently better seen through the third eye than his other two (having had his eyesight impaired by a bout of Stevens-Johnson syndrome at ten years old). Calling
These Days… a representation of "vibes of music and life right now and the past couple of years" in conversation with
HipHopDX, it seems a fair bit has changed both in the mind and life of TDE's scholarly soul.
All listen long,
These Days… plays to a duality that will likely catch some fans of Soulo off guard. The incredibly brainy nature of his musical output has been scaled back in places in favor of tracks of a more accessible flavor. Though he has admitted in the past that he isn't one to "wear polo drawers and put two chains on" to conform with some of rap's most recognizable figures, he's certainly well aware of his use of commercially viable sounds on the record. "Swear to god it's the only time I use this flow," he says in the soul-inspired outro section of "Just Have Fun" before launching into a delivery reminiscent of the Migos triplets. "Hunnid Stax" sees him team up with ScHoolboy Q for a competition in who can amass the most synonyms for money into their verse, with Mac Miller lazily rhyming, "I'm trying to spend a hundred stacks every day of my life" on the hook. For Ab-Soul, the man who once rapped, “If you do it for the jewels or the new tennis shoes….Then you do it to pollute], it’s a notable change over the past few years. The DJ Mustard-inspired "Twact" takes a page straight from the southern rap playbook:
