#AB SOUL CONTROL SYSTEM ALBUM DOWNLOAD SKIN#
#AB SOUL CONTROL SYSTEM ALBUM DOWNLOAD MAC#

On Control System, he narrated his battle with Stevens-Johnson syndrome and mourned the death of his partner and collaborator Alori Joi, and on the intensely emotional 'Closure,' he sings to an old flame. The more human Ab-Soul dares to be on record, the stronger he becomes. On the opening track 'God's Reign', produced by Purity Ring's Corin Roddick (who's building an impressive sideline in hip-hop), he raps 'Got your lady with literature in her Louis bag, got your kids studying outside of class', while on 'Dub Sac' he wants us to remember that 'martial law could happen any second!' He embraces his outsider status, filling his raps with struggling mid-level rapper details: On 'Tree of Life', he recalls selling out S.O.B.'s, a time-honored rite of passage, and gives us his version of being hounded by paparazzi: Fans holding him up for pictures in the bus station terminal. He's a proud pipsqueak, in other words, the self-appointed nerd of a cerebral crew. He has a thing for commercial pariahs: He is probably one of five living rappers in America who still eagerly namechecks Canibus as an influence he called Slaughterhouse ' the illest lyricists in the game.' He's certainly the only Black Hippy member giving 16-plus bars to Asaad ('Stigmata'), a Philly firebrand best known for releasing a mixtape with 2Pac sodomizing Biggie on the cover. 'Last-picked kid at gym class' suits Ab best anyway, since he reps the underdogs at every opportunity.

It's a 2012-era Black Hippy release through and through, with the sprawling runtime (90-plus minutes), resonant repeated catchphrases, and grey-toned mood to prove it. But These Days., which finally sees release this week, doesn't seem to mind. In the meantime, Isaiah Rashad may have eaten his lunch. It's a poignant revelation, one casting Ab as the last-picked kid in gym class. It was a major-label effort, through and through, the strain of compromise pulling at even its strongest cuts.Īb-Soul, it was recently revealed, was never signed to Interscope.

Oxymoron performed respectably on the album charts, but it also broke decisively with the moody, cinematic feel of the first flush of TDE releases. When I saw him perform an obligatory, dead-eyed in-store at a Beats store in February, he dryly pointed to the terrible sound system as an indicator of his status: 'A nigga gotta go platinum,' he joked. Ab-Soul can’t even fuck with Herbert,” one of his longtime friends, King Richard, says at the end of “No Report Card.” The Black Lip Bastard has set high standards, but his homie may have a point.Since then, Kendrick has crossed over-into platinum sales, apology texts from Macklemore, subliminal feuds with Drake-while Schoolboy, several tiers beneath his leader, toils in rap's middle class.

#AB SOUL CONTROL SYSTEM ALBUM DOWNLOAD SKIN#

(The music video bravely recreates the conditions of his suicide attempt, while a separate lyrics video shows comments from fans sharing how the song impacted them.) “Herbert,” meanwhile, details the relentless string of struggles that he’s fought all his life: being diagnosed at 10 years old with the rare disease Stevens-Johnson syndrome, which impacts his skin and his vision losing his father to gun violence and his former partner Alori Joh to suicide and more.īut what’s notably missing from Herbert is those conspiracy theories that electrified older albums like Control System he’d rather mine his own life experiences for deeper meaning instead of digging through the annals of YouTube and message boards. He revisits his younger days of memorizing Kris Kross lyrics (“Hollandaise”) and dealing with shady promoters during his journey to rap stardom (“Moonshooter”) taps into the street culture of his hometown of Carson, California (“Gang’nem”) and spits like his life is on the line on the DJ Premier-produced “Gotta Rap.”īut the centrepieces of the album are “Do Better” and the title track, “Herbert.” On the former, Soul grapples with depression and substance abuse while motivating himself to strive for his personal best. It makes for his most grounded record yet: His boastful rhymes teem with gratitude, his nostalgic verses produce sharply distinct memories, and voicemails from family members and loved ones hold the album together. (This included things like seeing an image of Hitler in photos of the 9/11 attacks.) So this time around, the cerebral, heart-baring lyricist sheds the veneer of his rap moniker and exposes fans to his real name, Herbert.

#AB SOUL CONTROL SYSTEM ALBUM DOWNLOAD MAC#

He lost two of his best friends-rappers Mac Miller and Doeburger-and started to climb out of what he describes as a “rabbit hole” of misinformation and conspiracy theories that impacted his relationships with loved ones and critics alike.

In the six long years since Ab-Soul last released an album, he's been through a lot.

Ab soul control system album download