Re-review: Ab-Soul’s “These Days…”

Re-reviews is a series that looks at music after the initial buzz dies down and see if we can find something new about it. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don’t. But it’s all just an excuse to keep the conversation going, right? Previously: YG’s My Krazy Life

Here was the plan: I wanted to write about Ab-Soul’s These Days… and its panoramic portrayal of hip hop/music these days, slightly parodying some of it in the process. That was the crux of it, at least.

I’d write how Soul validated some popular rap, but ethered others. I’d written these sentences two weeks ago:

‘His point with These Days… is to (kind of) prove that Black Hippy and acts connected with TDE produce the best music these days. Soul kind of goes kamikaze in the process, committing a little much to some of the worst songs like “Nevermind That,” “Twact,” and “Sapiosexual.” These days, yes Soul, there is a lot of crappy music on the radio, but I’m not sure why your fans needed reminding of that. Traditional hip hop has stal(l)ed, particularly in 2014, but why add to the problem instead of solving it?

Soul tries to elevate with his style and lyricism and production and callbacks, but it just doesn’t work. The album as a whole doesn’t make sense.’

I felt pretty good about that. Then I got distracted with other projects and work and two things happened: a) I kept listening to These Days… despite my initial disappointment in it and b) Soul essentially said everything I planned to write in an interview with HipHopDX.

HipHopDX: Is that what you did on These Days…?

Ab-Soul: Absolutely. And that’s why it is called These Days…That album is what I feel like these days sound like, in my own right. Of course, it was no mockery, but it was. I used a lot of references of today, of present and past, because that’s popular too. You listen to YG’s album, and he makes a lot of old references to Short Dawg or Suga Free or whatever, because that’s popular right now. And that’s paying respect. That’s letting the old generation know that they’re not going.

I felt dumb because I thought my opinion was unique. But like usual, it wasn’t, so let’s reprogram and try this again:

Ab-Soul has always been surrounded by music since his childhood, working at his parent’s record store, then decided to rap post-high school graduation. Early on, his cerebral-minded lyrics and word-twisting abilities earned him some critics’ attention, and he buzzed alongside his fellow Black Hippy Crew. People got excited about them. They were a movement, returning hip hop to its nutrient roots—new school rap mixed through old-school West Coast beats and drums slightly updated for a more contemporary sound.

Each member got big to a degree. Ab-Soul didn’t truly burst onto the scene like the others, despite being the group’s best lyricist,* but his following jumped considerably after Control System. Having “Illuminate” as a single plus the bloggers’ darling, cathartic “Book of Soul” with its Bobby McFerrin-sample ensured that. He was marginally successful, but not quite popular.

*Calm down. Kendrick’s the better rapper in all other ways, but Soul’s got him on lyrics. Soulo gets more intricate, more referential, more poetic. Check out the end of “Tree of Life,” he can flip a word to its syllabic brink, shifting its meaning each time along the way. Not that Kendrick can’t do that, just not like Ab-Soul can.

Rap played on the radio often gets a bad rapt. It’s (mostly) trite music, intended to be popular, instead of some expression by the artist. But to a large demographic, this is the only rap music they listen to; Rick Ross and Tyga and Wiz Khalifa are representative of their entire makeup of hip hop. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with these artists—there might not be anything wrong at all—but there might be better stuff out there, or other stuff that deserves some attention.

Which leads us back to Ab-Soul: This a dude who loves music, respects it, but hr e doesn’t get enough love on these streets. Unlike his Black Hippy crew members, ScHoolboy Q and Kendrick, Ab-Soul wasn’t signed to Interscope for whatever reason. (He’s a weird cat, that’s the reason.) All of this is to say Soul was in a very complicated spot musically: Should he “sell out” and make a studio-sounding album* or double down on crafting ‘respectable’ rap?

*Hi, ScHoolboy Q. (I’m joking…slightly.)

He did neither. He went in between, deciding to slam together his persona and mindful lyrics into these popular, ‘radio’ sounds, documenting all the recently booming subgenres along the way. ‘Oh there’s the pseudo-DJ Mustard sound, and okay here’s some trap, and wow he appropriated the MMG/Rick Ross luxury backdrop with Rick Ross on the track.’

But it’s deeper than that. He’s not copying these guys or even trying to create pop music; he’s trying to discover and emphasize what makes these sounds worthwhile (or not). He’s contradicting himself purposefully across the album, simultaneously boasting and lamenting rappers showboating ways. It’s like Soul tried to strip popular music to the musical essence of it all, which sounds a bit grandiose, I know. For the first half of the record, when he’s really attacking these pop sounds, it does feel that way. Though Soul can’t help himself to be, well, himself: The first eight tracks (except “Twact”) all end with some flip or new song after the song or shoutout that’s in most cases somewhat more likeable in some ways.

Here’s where I’m going to do the critic thing and guess what Soul’s doing here: In some ways, it’s a sacrifice, but more so he’s killing that part of himself that wants to make pop/studio music. (Or maybe he’s killing that part of himself that’s jealous and doesn’t understand why this music gets to be radio hits.) Not that he doesn’t desire to be popular, but he seems driven to a bigger purpose. How else do you explain this?

And there’s my personal favorite song on the album, “Just Have Some Fun.” It follows “Twact”—where Soul is so obviously making fun of Tyga and his hit “Faded,” even going as far as recruiting the same producer for the track—and where the album turns. On “Just Have Some Fun,” he lets go and throws together all these contradictory dimensions of himself with a fuck-it attitude and just goes for it. It’s an upbeat, party track that has Soul spitting real lines like “Met the devil in God’s elbow” and the “new drugs that got a nigga trippy these days” isn’t DMT or Molly, but fame for Soul that rushes him with “dopamine, I mean dope.”

It transitions to the outro “These Days,” which is like a Bon Iver song that didn’t make the cut from Bon Iver and has Soul using that Migos flow, referencing Drake, all channeled through Soul’s (third) eye. If this album is intended to capture music these days, and what’s great about it, Soul proves it with this track.

Following “Kendrick Lamar’s Interlude,” the record loses a bit of momentum. I get why “Closure” comes afterward, with Soul letting go of past relationships and feelings (including toward what Black Hippy used to be)*, along with what “Sapiosexual” is supposed to be doing, but the album doesn’t pick back up until “Stigmata.” (Hey, I never said These Days… was/were perfect.)

* Any usage of ‘music’ on the album, like on “Closure,” really could be replaced with ‘music.’

He ends the album on a decisive note with “W.R.O.H.” that has Soul spitting too-real lines like “And it might not be such a bad idea if I never went home again / Fucked all the same hoes again, bumping ‘Druggies Wit Hoes Again’ / With my bros again / No”. And that’s to say nothing of the battle rap with Daylyt, deserving of its own blog post, but for now I’ll say it’s impressive how Ab-Soul held his own against Daylyt, a true battle rapper (though Day did win).

After the battle, you can hear the crowd cheer and chatter, and someone proclaims “Hip Hop is not dead.” For someone who’s professed his fandom of Nas, that comment must be intentional. As long as battle-rapping and Top Dawg and Ab-Soul himself are around, hip hop can’t be dead.