If you’re forced to choose between Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q, choose Danny Brown and barring that choose Ab Soul, the guy still waiting at the altar of Kendrick’s superstar marriage is the best of the Black Hippy hip hop group, albeit the last one to blast through.
Ab Soul has the skills of an old time rapper with the sensibility of a modern day spitter. He isn’t an Earl Sweatshirt, he isn’t new r&b but he isn’t old school either; rather, he is like an hallucinogenic sound merchant , with such tremendous flow as a rapper (he mentions Twista as an influence) and while, like everybody else in the genre not part of the Odd Future posse, he can descend into bitches and guns a little too easily, his third release on Top Dawg Entertainment, survives its guest stars (Lupe Fiasco? Rick Ross??) and thrives. While so long at 90 minutes it seems quite unwieldy, still loop it in and it will continually excite.
Ab-Soul is performing at Webster Hall, Saturday July 12th, 2014. As we speak, it looks like I will be covering 4 Knots and I am psyched for a coupla of the names there. Dinosaur Jr and Lil Darlins being the obvious ones. I wrote about it the other day but may take another stab before it starts.
So any way, I can’t wait to check out Ab Soul, These Days… is an excellent album and I bet he brings it live.
