Album Review: Logic – “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”

For may some it may be hard to remember, but there was a point in time where Logic was once a rapper people generally held in high regard. His early mixtapes are still heralded as being some of the best of their respective years and he showed an incredible amount of versatility for such a young talent. Logic was a student of the genre and he often paid respect to those who came before him.

Under Pressure, his debut album released in 2014, showed an immense amount of potential for an emcee entering the mainstream. Stories of Logic’s troubled upbringing in Maryland were both exceedingly raw and visceral. To this day, this album personifies all of the best qualities about Logic: his relatability and ability to rap circles around his opposers. He was the natural underdog figure that everyone was rooting for. He had this insatiable drive to succeed that bolstered his music to the top of the rap landscape in only a couple of years. Frankly, it’s his best body of work, by far.

Now, cut to five years and seven albums later and Logic has undergone an almost complete 180-degree switch. His catalog has been increasingly becoming more stagnant and downright abysmal at times. One thing is for certain, something has been lost in translation (no pun intended) from 2014 to now and it’s not hard to figure out what it is: complacency.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind sees Logic bankrupt, both creatively and conceptually. This album is half-baked with so few interesting moments that it’s even worth wondering why he even bothered releasing it. From the recycled flows, excessive references to his genitalia, and Instagram-esque fake-wokeness of the lyrical content, it’s almost impossible to make it through this record without skipping around and groaning in-between. To put it bluntly, it’s lazy.

All throughout Confessions, Logic attempts to try and explain the effects that social media has had on him. Certain tracks even read like a laundry list of insults that people have sent to him over Twitter. At its core, this concept is not inherently bad. An album addressing how mental health and social media correlate can be very impactful if handled correctly. Yet, unlike other albums that draw this comparison, Logic is basically saying nothing but substance-less platitudes; Saying a lot, but simultaneously very little.

The title track does a pretty decent job of setting up the album’s premise as Logic laments about his anxiety and how the internet can be such a toxic space. His flow is pretty good and the production does an amazing job of complementing it. Although there are some questionable lyrics on this song, it’s one of Logic’s better album openers.

A vast majority of the songs on Confessions range from laughable to boring enough to land you in an induced catatonic state. “Clickbait” is probably Logic’s worst song to date. Most of the features fall extremely flat, especially G-Eazy on “Commando” and Gucci Mane on “Icy”. Both of them deliver some of the most phoned in verses of their entire careers. Wiz Khalifa is horribly placed on the track “Still Ballin”, as he can barely keep with Logic’s fast delivery.

There’s an absolutely hilarious feature from none other than the Fresh Prince himself Will Smith on “Don’t Be Afraid To be Different”. This song is so ridiculously inoffensive and hackneyed that even Kidz Bop would reject covering it on the grounds of the track being too corny.

Let it be known that this is the same rapper who, in 2013, did a tribute to A Tribe Called Quest’s legendary “Midnight Marauder” and said:

And even though I gotta leave, man, don’t none of y’all grieve
‘Cause even in the mainstream that lyricism I breathe

And then on “Don’t Be Afraid to Be Different” says:

I don’t give a damn ’bout lyrics
You should feel the spirit when you hear it

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To top it all off, the track “BOBBY” sees Logic talking about being “biracial only in his penis” and it’s at this point where a person has to sit back and question what happened.

“Homicide”, Mama/Show Love”, “Keanu Reeves”, and “Lost in Translation” still prove that Logic is able to craft interesting and engaging music. In fact, “Lost in Translation” is so great, that it almost feels like a leftover from Under Pressure. 6ix’s production work is immaculate as the beat switches allow Logic to ride the pocket with a flow that is reminiscent of those early projects. For a moment, it’s as if Logic channeled that drive and hunger that made him famous, to begin with.

With Confessions, a number of things become dangerously less opaque. Logic is clearly wallowing in a creative low point, where few very of his concepts are sticking. This album proves that Logic is in dire need of an immediate course correction because he is rapidly approaching the point of no return.

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