Ab-Soul, the drugged out conscious of Top Dawg Entertainment, has been in absent for two years since his last release, Control System. He would appear on features here and there with a lot of lackluster verses; Acid Rap’s track Smoke Again is a prime example. Though he’s had some mediocre and also slightly better features on Blue Chips 2 and Watching Movies with the Sound Off. It’s sad to say that now his anticipated album is lackluster in comparison to his other work.
Ab-Soul opens the album with a similar style to Control System’s. Ab-Soul delivers a track where he mixes braggadocios bars with relevant bars about his past and come-up. The verse perfectly meshes religious metaphors as well with his overt usage of drug references. The hook, by TDE member SZA, is one of the better hooks on the album too. The album has a good start and the next track lowers the bar slightly. His verse loses momentum and lyrical prowess; it’s very generic, until the end where his last verse is possibly one of the better verses on the album. In comparison to the other album it’s meh. The witty wordplay is there but it just loses momentum flow wise
“With a dollar and a dream, why you think money is green? Color of vegetation, the most important thing, trees.” This is the stand out line from the track
One thing I’ve always liked about Ab-Soul was that he was abstract and an asshole, lyrically. His second album Control System was one of the greatest albums of 2012 and this just went downhill. The next two tracks are so mundane that I don’t bother with them much. “Hunnid Stax” has lackluster bars and the flows match each other that I tend to care for Schoolboy Q’s verse over Ab-Soul. “Dub Sac” is a track that has two parts like “Tree of Life.” The track is all over the place like “Bohemian Grove” off Control System, where Ab-Soul goes all over the place with political allusions and talking about money and fucking women, while the beat stays with it’s repetitive sounds and no switches. At least “Bohemian Grove” was great.
The album begins to pick up after “Twact.” “Twact” is a track that serves no purpose except being one of the most commercial sounding tracks off this album. It’s weak lyrically and the instrumental is too simple and uninteresting.
After that, Ab-Soul’s good feel track “Just Have Fun,” hits hard with the smoothness and cleanliness of the mixing, instrumental and the hook. Kendrick Lamar then comes in with an interlude that resembles, stylistically, Ab-Soul’s outro on Section.80. The album has better instrumentals, better lyrics and better features in the second half.
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The only track I do dislike slightly is “Closure,” a track where Ab-Soul comes to term with Alori’s death, which was a motif on Control System. Ab-Soul’s singing isn’t expressing much and just feels dead. The instrumental is too simple and it doesn’t make me feel anything. Though I do like the film.
The title track off this album is “Stigmata,” and it’s probably my favorite track off the album. Each verse hits its point with each rapper, especially Action Bronson, whose style isn’t very pertinent with this type of song. The instrumental switches at certain points, but the instrumental also has its faults with the repetitive bass drop during the verses. When the hook comes in the beat switch is what keeps me hooked, no pun intended.
The final track off the album has a hidden audio recording where Ab-Soul faces battle rapper Daylyt. Ab-Soul holds his own and is a nice little gem in a hip-hop album cause it represents the underground scene. This album isn’t that great, but I think it still holds it’s own over some weak beats, mediocre lyrics, and no cohesiveness with it’s tonal shifts.
4/10
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