Zay delights in a pocket, then migrates in step with each soundscape on to another frontier. On hooks and bridges he’s now liable to remove all pauses in cadence outright, spraying a mishmash of syllables to form a ceaseless sentence. He’s always reveled in the space between words-how each impasse can be contorted and tapped to create a cohesive string of sounds. The record is a display of self-reflection from an artist better and more comfortable than he’s ever been. That is, until Friday, when Rashad returned out of the proverbial wilderness with his third album, The House Is Burning. Insert the all-too-common lamentations of addiction and fame’s vise grip, combined with general bag-fumbling tendencies-and there you have it. Then, in 2016, he went on tour after his second album was released and disappeared. Rashad dropped two albums in three years, each one an expansion upon previous work and a mark of an MC brimming with the kind of unmatched charisma that generally leads to domination in the social media age. And in a way that will never stop being shocking, he ended up being worthy of the hype. The short story: When Rashad signed to the California super label TDE in 2013, he was positioned-along with R&B’s reigning songstress, SZA-to be next in line to the audiences of Kendrick Lamar and the rest of Black Hippy. I often imagine the Chattanooga, Tennessee, rapper Isaiah Rashad in a state of near-constant introspection because there are only so many things that can explain an artist taking a five-year break at what should be the peak of their career. But if you can manage, it might help you work through some things. Looking in the mirror and not flinching at the shame and splendor reflecting back can be quite the task. You’ve got to move for it, and even then there’s the matter of finding a pathway to salvation (assuming there is one). In other words: Soul-searching ain’t easy. This is not an essay arguing for the merits of burying one’s head into a deep and sandy hill, but it must be said that knowing thyself doesn’t pay for shit and is dirty work.
0 kommentar(er)
